Two of our students have hit the headlines this week thanks to a campaign to support young female football players with short hair after the team they play for was accused of “cheating” by fielding boys in matches.
Antonia and Camille in Year 7, who both play for York RI’s U12 girls football team, were left feeling “upset” and “frustrated” by comments made by opposing teams and their supporters.
York RI AFC’s women’s recreational squad took up the cause and made a social media video of players wearing T-shirts with the slogan “girls can have short hair – get over it” to show solidarity with the club’s under 12 girls’ side.
Camille, said: “When we were playing football once we had an opposition that was quite mean about people with short hair playing football for a girls’ team.
“They said: ‘Why’s there a boy on the pitch? You need to take them off because they’re boys and it’s cheating’ and our coach told them off.
“When I heard this I felt quite upset because I don’t really understand why they can’t just get on with what they’re doing rather than worry about other people’s business.”
Antonia added: “I felt quite frustrated because they were attacking them for no reason when they hadn’t done anything wrong.”
The campaign, which has gone from strength to strength, has been talked about on BBC Radio 2’s Jeremy Vine Show and BBC online this week.
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