Our series of extracts from unstaged scripts continues with Tamsin Oglesby’s play about whether a squad – all women and run by women – can win in a different way
This is not a play about football. It’s not even a play about women’s football. Although it’s worth noting that when I first mooted the idea around six years ago I was told it was “a bit niche”. However, discussing the commission with the National Theatre four years later I’m glad to say that, what with the Euros looming and in light of the expanding awareness of the women’s game, it was deemed a plus. But the play is really about power.
I’ve always loved playing football (five-a-side, some in leagues, some not, men’s teams, women’s teams – anyone who’ll have me basically) and two of the many aspects of it I enjoy are the team ethos and the instinctive obligation to live in the moment. It’s impossible to play a game of football (arguably any sport) and worry about your tax at the same time. So, if casual sexism rears its head on the pitch, and power games are being played by some (male) coaches in the one arena where we should be free from all that, it rankles. Eventually stories of manipulation start coming out, stories that it seems have been held in abeyance by two things; the fear of falling out of favour and that paralysing question: “Or is it me?”