Men's Stadiums: The Future of Women's Football?

While the men’s teams were on international break, Pittodrie, Easter Road and Parkhead became the home to Aberdeen vs Rangers, Hibs vs Partick Thistle and Celtic vs Hibs.

In recent years it has become more common for women’s teams to play at their club’s official stadiums, but it is still a rarity. The announcement of these grounds hosting women’s teams is a huge step forward for the female game in Scotland as talks continue to figure out ways women’s teams can play at men’s stadiums without causing their pitches excess damage.

Some teams have been sharing grounds with their male counterparts for a few seasons now such as Hamilton Accies, Kilmarnock, St Johnstone and even the women’s national team at Hampden. However, only on rare occasions have games been played at Easter Road and Celtic Park.

Hamilton taking on Motherwell

Last season Celtic Park hosted a behind closed doors Old Firm match and once fans were allowed back in Easter Road hosted the first Edinburgh derby of the season which brought in 5,512 supporters after Hibs offered free tickets to fans. This event broke the record for most fans at a women’s domestic game in Scotland and Hibs will be hoping to break their own record when Partick Thistle visits on Wednesday. Different initiatives have been lodged to encourage fans to support the women’s equivalent of their club which has had some successes such as offering games to stream via club channels (Rangers TV etc.), kids go free deals and significantly cheaper adult tickets and playing at home grounds when possible.

One of the biggest criticisms people have of the SWPL is how inaccessible at times attending games can be as many teams will use community football grounds to play rather than proper stadiums. Currently, teams like Motherwell, Celtic, Rangers, Aberdeen, Hearts, and Hibs play out of a lower league team’s ground such as at Penny Cars, community grounds such as Alliance Park or clubs’ training grounds such as the Rangers Training Centre.

For those that cannot drive it’s hard to physically travel to games as not every ground has strong public transport links, or you would need a good knowledge of the local area to know what buses and trains to take. Playing games at the team’s established grounds means more fans may be inclined to attend games more frequently as they are more likely to know how to get to Ibrox or to Tynecastle rather than Petershill Park or Ainslie Park.

Fixture clashing has happened frequently this season where SWPL matches have been played at the same time as their male counterparts which has damaged crowd sizes at big games as fans were forced to choose who they would rather watch and what is worth travelling to more. The SPFL takeover of the SWPL hopes to work with clubs to encourage them to host their women’s teams going forward into the future. When speaking to Anyone’s Game the Head of Girls’ and Women’s Football at the SFA and former Chief Executive Officer at Scottish Women’s Football, Fiona McIntyre, said: “There are several factors that would be involved in adjusting fixtures.

“Firstly, you have the SPFL fixtures come out that are subject to change sometimes late in the day due to television broadcasts and then the same happens in the SWPL. This provides us with an opportunity as the SPFL have advanced sophisticated software which allows you to factor in several parameters.

“I personally think this is something that we should be looking at is how do we provide the best opportunities for supporters to come along and support whatever version of their club they want to watch. What I would say however is that the footballing calendar is incredibly tight now.

“It is incredibly difficult to find dates for games so there may be instances where clashes happen, but we will proactively work to minimise the number of times that will happen as a key part of our strategy is to get as many supporters along as possible.”

With roughly 1900 fans at Pittodrie alone and a rumoured 3K at Celtic Park, the fans have spoken. Those that want to attend women’s games that perhaps don’t usually go are happy to if they share a home ground with their male counterparts. We also conducted a survey into people’s opinions involving women’s football in Scotland which found that 59% of those surveyed believed that playing games at the same stadiums as their male counterparts, better broadcasting options, more publicity from men’s clubs and media outlets, altered ticket prices and more funding from club chief executives were the key to improving the female game.

Putting these suggestions into place is much easier said than done but the sooner a more sustainable development strategy is implemented across the SWPL the better. With the success of pulling in big crowds at these games over the weekend and the new SPFL takeover hopefully more women’s teams will have the opportunity to play at their club’s official home ground going forward.