Bend It Like Beckham

Hugely popular film played its part in growing the game but lack of South Asian participation remains a problem.

The only disappointing thing, watching the club’s young female players participate in a summer tournament the other weekend, is that over the subsequent years of development, football seems to have attracted way more Jules’s than Jesminder’s. This is something writ large across the country. “Can you even do that?” says Jess. “Well, not in this country,” replies Jules. “But you can in America.” In the 20 years since Gurinder Chadha’s glorious film – which went on to become the highest grossing football movie at the time in the United States – was released, things have changed completely: top American players now come to England to play in the Women’s Super League. Tuesday’s sold-out Euros semi-final is indicative of the progress that has been made in the women’s game here. We had no female teams: a couple of girls played in lads’ sides, but were obliged to stop at 11, above which age mixed football was banned by the Football Association. After seeing the film, the club secretary suggested we should start some girls teams in order to accommodate any local Jess or Jules who wanted a game. On Saturday, it was screened at the Women’s Euro fan park in Trafalgar Square, the London Mayor Sadiq Khan describing it as “inspiring a generation of girls to play football”. Twenty years since it was released, the movie is these days reckoned not so much a piece of entertainment as the harbinger of a social revolution. Appearing more in urgent need of treatment for woodworm than a Bafta nomination, it is clear that acting is not Lineker’s forte.