Why Playing Football Helps Girls Develop Resilience and Boosts their Mental Health and Fitness
The profile of girls’ and women’s football has changed dramatically in the last 20 years since the FA set up the girls academies with the purpose of generating players capable of winning major international tournaments. The success of the Lionesses is a result of that investment.
At the time (2005-2010), when the Centres of Excellence started, I was coaching a girls football team and developing my academic career, having previously worked as a practitioner in mental health for many years.
It was whilst I was coaching girls football that I decided on the topic for my PhD. This took place well before the recent successes of the Lionesses.
The idea for my study started one winter’s morning on a hillside just outside the town of Barnsley in South Yorkshire. The weather was atrocious; bitter cold, with the wind almost knocking people off their feet and the rain lashed down horizontally across the field. A match between two teams of girls aged ten to eleven was scheduled to take place on this hillside, and everyone had turned up hoping for a postponement. Unfortunately for everyone, because the pitch was not frozen, the match had to go ahead. Those are the rules.
For the next hour, the girls battled against the wind, the rain, the cold and the mud. Some of them wore gloves and two or three kept on their tracksuit bottoms, although none of them gave up fighting the elements, trying to play the ‘beautiful game’. Parents and coaches were huddled on the sidelines; inside-out umbrellas littered the area and a man hoping to walk his dog had to walk alone as his dog refused to get out of the car!
The game ended in a stalemate as nobody scored. As soon as my players had shaken hands with the opposition players, I thanked them for their efforts and everyone rushed off to the car park to get out of the cold.
Whilst I was standing on the touchline, I found myself wondering ‘Why are they doing this?’ or rather, ‘Why, when it can be really so unpleasant, will they do this again next week?’ Moreover, they have other options: ballet, gymnastics, badminton, swimming. They could have been somewhere dry and warm but they had chosen to play football instead.
From this initial question I reflected that this activity must be having some long-term psychological benefit for the girls and that this psychological benefit was over-riding any temporary discomfort. The study attempted to discover a little more than we already had available in the existing research about girls’ experiences of competitive football and the benefits of participation.
I was given permission to conduct research with girls from one of the national academies and one of the local clubs that had several girls’ teams. I wanted to explore the impact of football on girls’ emotional resilience and I was able to compare my findings with national norms that had been established through extensive research conducted with schoolchildren of the same age. I also conducted focus groups with several teams across the age range of ten to sixteen.
I am sure that it will not surprise anyone to discover that girls who play football measure positively for the development of psychological resilience when compared to the norms for their age.
The data analysis provided indications that, in general, girls who play football are likely to have fewer emotional problems, fewer conduct problems, fewer peer problems, positive prosocial behaviour and normal levels of hyperactivity.
Using Welch’s test (a statistical test used to compare the means of two independent groups, particularly when their variances are unequal), several scores were shown to be either significantly or very significantly different to the norms. In particular, all of the Total Difficulties Scores, for the Centre of Excellence and for the local club, and for both self-report and parent report, were shown to be very significantly different to the norms.
Three of the four scores for emotional problems and two of the four scores for emotional problems were shown to be very significantly different to the norms. It is therefore possible to conclude that the link between girls playing football and having positive mental wellbeing is not likely to be just a chance occurrence, although causality cannot be assumed.
From the focus group discussions I identified themes that relate to theory on resilience, and I use the girls’ statements to illustrate each of these themes.
The list of things that the girls enjoyed about football reflects many of the protective factors identified as enhancing resilience, such as having a range of prosocial skills; being able to make and keep friendships; teamwork skills, such as collaborating with others and integrating new members to social groups (Holt et al., 2008); having a social interest outside of the home (Newman, 2004; Werner and Smith, 1982); and having a sense of self-efficacy (Daniel, Wassell and Gilligan, 2010).
Other factors that boost resilience that the girls described included experimenting and acquiring mastery over new skills (Newman, 2004); having a good level of physical fitness; and having a good sense of humour (Werner and Smith, 1992).
When the girls were asked what they thought were the good things about playing football, all four groups focused their initial responses on the social aspects of playing football; the importance of meeting new people, making new friends, supporting each other and having fun together. Keeping fit also came up as a common theme. One of the teams provided an expansive list of why they like to be together.
They described their team as an environment where they could make mistakes and laugh about it, where new members were made welcome and where girls from several different schools could come together to enjoy each other’s company.
Teamwork skills
As well as developing technical skills, playing football involves developing teamwork skills. The girls reported that playing football has helped them improve communication and make new friends. The Centre of Excellence teams were drawn from a wide geographical area with very few girls knowing each other outside of the Centre. The girls from the local club largely came from one geographical area but attended a variety of different schools. It is interesting to note that despite the fact that new players would be introduced to the team by the coach, the girls did not mention his or her role in the integration of new players.
The assimilation of new girls is something for which the girls themselves seemed to take responsibility. One observation from this study was that the girls laid much greater store by the satisfaction they got from being part of a team than from the football matches themselves. For them, the best part was the cooperation and not the competition. They talked a lot about spending time with their friends, making new friends and being 'open and inviting' to new girls into the team.
Acquiring Skills
The girls stated that one of the incentives to play football, and even one of the motivations to play football (rather than gymnastics for example,) is that they gain satisfaction from acquiring a skill and that the skills involved in football are somewhat more complex than the skills required to do gymnastics. The girls accepted that they acquire additional skills by training hard but balanced that by acknowledging that they also have a lot of fun in training and have opportunities to chat.
Keeping Fit
One explanation some of the girls put forward for their enjoyment of the game was that it keeps them fit. There are a number of physical benefits derived from playing sport; these include a reduced likelihood of developing a range of diseases in later life. There is now very good evidence, over a number of years, of the connection between a good level of physical exercise and the reduction in mental health problems.
A Pitch Perfect Role….
By Andrew Okwera
I volunteered (actually, I was pushed into, by my wife Charlotte!) to coach my daughter Jessica's football team in August this year. Jessica decided she wanted to play for the Hallam Rangers Under 7's Girls Football Club. They needed a few parents to volunteer and I ended up as their team coach.
I really enjoy the role. I get involved with coaching the girls at training, looking after the equipment and being the motivator/clown for the girls. I have a keen interest in football and it has been lovely having the time to bond with my daughter.
It does have its downsides though. I have now lost my Thursday evening and Saturday morning. After a hard day (or week) at work, it can be a little 'challenging' trying to persuade a team of eight-year-olds to pay attention and follow instructions!
The team has started the season well, winning most of the games they have played. It has been rewarding watching the girls develop their skills and they really enjoy playing football together. They even have a team song and cheer for each other in training. Some of the girls were shy to start with, and I'm amazed at how their confidence has grown – they are now as boisterous as the rest!
I shall look forward to the future and, who knows, I may end up as the Sheffield Wednesday Ladies Team Manager one day. I can but dream!"
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