myself when I wear the captain’s
armband, I try to prove by example,
[with] performances on the pitch.
Whereas Lee would manage things off
the pitch and perform on the pitch as
well. I just try to lead by example and
that’s certainly something Lee did: he
led by example in everything he did.”
After such tragedy and
with the resilience it has
fostered in the squad, an
away trip to millionaire-
backed Wrexham on Tues-
day night, with only 14 fit
players, did not feel quite
so daunting. A 2-0
victory followed, Yeovil
captioning the result
with “Hollywood foot-
ball” on Twitter.
Stretching their unbeatenrun to eight matches, focus turns to
today’s televised cup tie with Stevenage
— a match with added “spice” as
Wilkinson describes it as he, the man-
ager Darren Sarll and a number of
other members of the Yeovil squad
return to their former club.
Wilkinson hopes that it will carry
him into the second round for the
first time in his career. He grew up
hearing of Yeovil’s giantkilling in the
FA Cup, and they have the best
victory record against sides in a
higher league, with 23 wins —
yet three seasons into his
career with Yeovil, and at the
age of 31, he has experiencedfiffifiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiittttttttttttttttttttttttttthhh
FCollins’s death last season
has led to a new focus on
mental health awarenesskick off till ten o’clock at night and it
was just an unbelievable experience,
especially when you’ve got police
escorting you to the ground and
things like that,” Whitworth says. “It
was a novelty for us and then you
came back and you were back to
grassroots again.”
The players lived almost a double
life. For weeks they would travel the
world experiencing a career not
dissimilar to that of a women’s
footballer in the modern day, albeit
without the financial reward.
“We never got paid,” Whitworth
says, laughing. “When we were in
South America we got £5 a week and
that was to pay for your stamps home
when you wrote to your parents.”
Then they would return to
England, their schools and their day
jobs. Whitworth’s parents had to get
permission for her to miss school for
the South America tour, but she was
unable to go to Morocco six years
later because she could not get time
off from her office job at Dunlop’s.
The return to poor facilities was the
most jarring shift to reality
in England. “When I look [at women’s
football now] I think, ‘Gosh, I wish we
had the opportunity to have played
on these pitches.’ Our changing
rooms... we had no water, we had no
lights. We had to get washed in a
duck pond or bring buckets of water
from the manager’s house which was
around the corner, carry two buckets
of water to get washed in for 20-odd
people. We went on the bus full of
mud. You just learnt to accept it.”
Several historians reflect that
Whitworth, who played on the right
wing, was one of the best of her
generation, a star of the Corinthians
team. She is more modest herself.
“I don’t go bragging,” she says, but
she admits that she would have liked
to play for her country.
However, she was prevented from
having the opportunity to fulfil that
ambition by a knee injury that forced
her to retire at 27, by which time the
ban had ended and an official
England team existed.
Such history cannot be changed,
but it can be learnt from, and players
throughout the international age
groups are reminded by the FA of the
sacrifices of those that came before
them. “You must never forget that
you stand on the shoulders of these
people,” Campbell has said. It is
somewhat surreal for Whitworth that,the times | Saturday December 4 2021 1GS 11Question marks over United
deal with betting partner
Mystery continues to surround
Manchester United’s global
betting partner Hua Ti Hui, with
the gambling platform’s website
still not functioning eight months
after the announcement.
The partnership is another
example of football clubs signing
deals with gambling companies or
cryptocurrency platforms where
the financial benefit is significant
but regulation and transparency
appears to be minimal. United’s
previous global betting
partnership with Yabo Sports was
worth a reported $4.5 million
(£3.4 million) per season.
HTH is a Chinese-owned
platform operating in the Far
East, but it is taking advantage of
a “white label” deal with an Isle of
Man-based company called TGP
Europe to operate in the UK. TGP
Europe, which is licensed by the
Gambling Commission, has 15
betting platforms operating under
white labels, effectively sub-
licences.
The commission said last year
that there was “concern that
unlicensed operators who would
potentially not pass the
commission’s initial licensing
suitability checks, are looking touse the white label model to
provide gambling services in
Great Britain... so it is essential
that licence holders conduct
appropriate due diligence...
before entering into a business
relationship.”
United declined to comment
when asked if they had any
concerns about the HTH
partnership. Club insiders said
that due diligence was carried out
on all partners and they were
confident the HTH deal complied
with UK law via TGP Europe.
The club are also understood to
be considering signing a
partnership with a cryptocurrency
platform. Industry sources say
that one trading platform,
Binance — which unlike other
platforms involved with clubs
does not use a fan engagement
model — has already held talks
with United.
Meanwhile, Alvin Chau, chief
executive of one of the biggest
gambling companies in the Far
East, Suncity Group, which has
commercial links to many of the
online platforms that sponsor
Premier League teams, has been
arrested in Macau as part of a
money-laundering investigation.Saudis’ cold feet
Fifa’s plan for a two-yearly World
Cup appears to have well and
truly hit the buffers after the
Saudi Arabian FA, which
originally proposed the feasibility
study into the idea, said it was not
pushing for the change.
Yasser al-Misehal, the
federation’s president,
said: “Some people
misunderstood the
message and
thought that we
are pushing for a
World Cup every
two years, which is
not true.
“We are only
waiting, like the rest of
the member associations, to
see the final feasibility study that
is already being conducted by
Fifa. I can’t give my yes or no
before I see the final results of the
whole study.”
Al-Misehal sits on the Saudi
Olympic committee so he may
have also been alarmed by the
IOC’s fierce opposition to the
proposals. “I also care about the
interests of the Olympics
movement,” he said.Monitor will stay
The Premier League has stuck
with its online abuse monitoring
service Athletia despite putting
the contract up for tender in
March. Athletia, which also
monitors piracy of Premier
League transmissions, will
continue in the role despite bids
from rival companies.Beattie’s boost
The announcement that Glasgow
is to host the 2024 World Indoor
Athletics Championships is one in
the eye for the former UK
Athletics chief executive Jo
Coates, who insiders say was less
than supportive of the bid.
There will be no lack of backing
for the event from the new UKA
chairman, Ian Beattie, however:
not only he is a former head of
Scottish Athletics but he is also a
passionate Scottish nationalist.Nike in spotlight
There could be more trouble
looming for Nike after reports of a
grand jury investigation in the
United States into the financial
relationship between the
sportswear giant and USA Track
& Field (USATF).
According to Runner’s
Wo r l d, the US
Attorney’s Office
has requested via a
grand jury
subpoena
documents
pertaining to
USATF and three
businesses including
Nike, which
announced in 2014 a
$475 million (£359 million)
23-year deal from 2017 to 2040.
Nike has had a series of bad PR
events, including its sponsorship
of the Oregon project of Alberto
Salazar, inset, before his doping
ban, and then revelations that it
had financially penalised athletes
who became pregnant.SPORT
NOTEBOOK
Martyn Ziegler
Chief Sports Reporter
belatedly, there is interest in the
achievements of teams like the
Corinthians.
In November 2019, the author and
historian Dr Gary James had
informed Manchester City that a
group of former players were
planning on attending a women’s
game. “It was absolutely fantastic,”
Whitworth remembers. “We sat in the
comfy seats and as we went down at
half-time Phil Neville [then the
manager of the England women’s
team] came and had his picture taken
with us. He was a lovely lad even
though he’s a red!
“Karen Bardsley [the Manchester
City goalkeeper] came. Some of the
girls wanted autographs. I couldn’t
stop laughing because we aren’t used
to that sort of thing in this country,
we had that in South America — not
over here.”
It is an ongoing process but, in
stark contrast to the officials involved
in the ban in 1921, the FA is now led
by those with genuine interest in the
growth of the women’s game.
Steps are being taken to highlight
the careers of the key figures in
English women’s football history.
Last month Carol Thomas, the first
player of either sex to captain
England in a European
Championship final, was inducted
into the National Football Museum’s
Hall of Fame.
As the FA looks to combat
prejudice and stereotypes against
women’s football it is battling against
the legacy of its own legislation that
effectively halted progress for almost
50 years.
“I can’t understand why that
decision was made,” Campbell says.
“But it was and it lasted a very long
time. When you think that the
women’s game has only been
relatively new, compared to, say, the
men’s game, it lost that 50 years of
development.”
Women had to find new places to
play, new talent to attract, and
crucially needed to disprove the
sexism that the ban had created — if
the FA had openly stated the game
was not suitable for females, why
should people watch it?
It remains an accusation levelled at
the women’s game.
For players like Whitworth and her
team-mates, some of whom have
died, there will always be a sense of
‘what if’? “I look at them [playing
now] and I think, ‘I wonder what
you’d be like if you played on the
pitches that we played on’,” she says.
The idea of Fran Kirby and
Vivianne Miedema playing on local
parks and bathing in pond water is
absurd, but it is worth a fleeting
thought as they stride onto the
Wembley pitch tomorrow — it was
not always like this.HANDOUTmore FA Cup heartbreak than magic.
“The furthest I’ve been is probably the
second round when I was at Luton
[Town]. We had Cambridge [United
from] the same league but it was classed
as a local derby, there was a little bit of
rivalry between the teams, and we
ended up losing 2-1. They went on to
get Manchester United in the next
round.”
If Yeovil can defeat Sky Bet League
Two opposition, it will bolster their
reputation as a side that bigger teams
are keen to avoid in the cup. But for
Wilkinson and his team-mates, it will
be Collins on their mind, another stage
to share the importance of mental-
health support.
6 FA Cup second round: Yeovil Town v
Stevenage 5.30pm, BBC2 and BBC
iPlayer- the tragedy driving Yeovil cup quest
ge.
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