We’re Back For More… With #SK64 (Editor’s Letter)

Jen O’Neill opens by saying she has just deleted a longer piece about the pandemic, and then writes it anyway. Tiered restrictions and changing travel protocols have hit participation and competitions at every level, some cancelled outright. An empty Wembley for a women’s cup final was, she says, a sorry sight. What troubles her most is not the elite game but a generation of girls having their football education interrupted: continued disruption to school sport and Regional Talent Club training must be soul-destroying for coaches, parents and children, and she cannot reconcile children attending school together but not playing sport together. She takes comfort from Women’s Football Weekend, from the inspiring voices in this issue – Casey Stoney and Steph Houghton – and from the reminder, in the magazine’s own look at independent clubs, that the game is not only about the elite.