Just For You, Here’s SK72! (Editor’s Letter)

Editor Jen O’Neill opens the April/May 2022 issue against a deliberately double-edged backdrop: a game full of inspiring individuals and scintillating action, set beside the worry and uncertainty of a world at war. Football, she argues, is a release and a fantastic source of learning, and the people featured in this issue have all had to show real strength to recover from setbacks. Her standout memory of the period is not a match but The FA and Barclays’ inaugural Biggest Ever Football Session on 9 March 2022, when more than 90,000 girls from 1,450 schools joined in with the Let Girls Play campaign. She sets that against the participation gap it exists to close, with only 63 per cent of schools offering girls’ football in PE lessons, and signs off on the magazine’s habit of taking the football seriously but never itself.