After leaving the game she loved, Gemma Clarke returned to soccer through the women’s game. And in doing so, she was able to live a childhood dream.
As a little girl, Gemma Clarke’s dream was to one day become an author. And with her new book Soccerwomen: The Icons, Rebels, Stars, and Trailblazers Who Transformed the Beautiful Game, she was able to make a lifelong dream become a reality.
‘This is what I’ve wanted to do since I was a little kid,’ Clarke said. ‘So, it really is incredible to have a book out in the world.’
Clarke, who grew up in a house filled with the beautiful game, began her writing career covering the men’s game. As there was no setup for women to play in England, Clarke grew up wanting to be ‘one of the boys’, both on the field and in the sports journalism world.
And as she pursued her career covering the men’s game, she quickly learned that the world was not ready for a female breaking into a mostly male profession.
‘In the world of sports journalism, it was very closed off to women,’ Clarke said. ‘So, there was a time when I didn’t really want to write about soccer at all. I stopped writing about soccer or watching soccer and it was really through a connection to the women’s game that I came back to it.’
Women’s soccer opened up a new world for Clarke to explore, filled with history dating back to the 1890s with Nettie J. Honeyball forming the first British Ladies Football Club. With an entire fresh landscape of sport at Clarke’s fingertips, it created the perfect opportunity for her newfound love of the game and her childhood dream of becoming an author to come together and write the book she had always wanted to read.
‘It’s one of those things where you think ‘I wish I could read that book,” Clarke said. ‘I’d love to read the history of the game but a personal history of the game.’
That love led her to set out and accomplish what she had always dreamt of doing, becoming an author. But just like any dream, there were bumps in the road. And in Clarke’s case, that bump came in the form of a new baby girl.
‘I guess I was not having the easiest pregnancy and they thought the baby was going to come early so I had to go to hospital,’ Clarke said. ‘Then it was kind of intimidating to think about starting again when she was just a few weeks old.’
Clarke continued on working towards the end of her dream book, interviewing legends of the game such as Abby Wambach, Christine Sinclair, and Mia Hamm. ‘The feeling of speaking to these women who have done so much for the game,’ Clarke said. ‘It was this once in a lifetime kind of opportunity.’
These world stars have helped grow the women’s game due to their eminent ability of the pitch. And with women all across sports constantly fighting the battle for equality, these players have no choice but to consistently play at the top of their game to help the cause. Similarly, as Clarke ventures on the task of capturing these players’ journeys into the beautiful game, she has no choice but to continue that eminent quality in her writing.
‘I feel that women probably feel that in everything they do, that it has to be good or you’re somehow letting the side down,’ Clarke ceded. ‘A big part of the reason for writing it was wanting to do them justice and wanting to write about them in a way that felt genuine.’
The growth of the women’s game is visibly obvious around the world, even more so at the time of the World Cup, top-flight players coming together to fight for glory on the field and equality off it.
But despite recent growth, there is still work to be done in every part of the world. Attention focuses to the women’s game every four years, but it is in between those tournaments that the players are forced to play in unprofessional conditions in their domestic leagues where little to no attention is given.
‘There are so many really cool commercials out right now of big brands doing some great personal sponsorship of players and I would love to see them do that on a league level,’ Clarke explained. ‘It’s criminal that teams can be playing in huge games, there were some big games just before the World Cup and they get no coverage at all in the newspapers. All of that needs to change.’
The fight for equality continues in women’s soccer through the players who champion the sport both on and off the field. They are standing on the shoulders of those earlier generations who prepared the way.
Clarke captures these trailblazers perfectly, reflecting on those that have come before while looking ahead to a new generation of players who are set to carry the torch of those they looked up to when they were merely kicking a ball around with a dream.
Players like Rose Lavelle and Sam Kerr have already made their mark in domestic league play and are set to shock the world this summer in France. And while women in sport continue to battle for equality, the next generation gives hope for years to come.
‘What I love so much about these young players is that how much they seem freer to enjoy the game,’ Clarke said. ‘It seems now that they are able to live and be professional soccer players and just enjoy their sport.’ And that is all that women in soccer every truly wanted.