Celebrating International Women’s Day 2026

I didn’t grow up believing football was a space for women like me. I simply stood on the touchline because that’s where my younger brother played.

As the eldest sibling, and the only girl, my weekends were spent watching U11 football at Walpole Wanderers in the Middlesex League. Opportunities for girls in the game were limited back then. There were no clear pathways, no girls’ teams to join. If you wanted to be involved, you found your own way.

So I did.

At 14, I played goalkeeper in The Metropolitan 5-a-side competition. I wrote match reports for the local paper, I collected players’ subscriptions, poured tea, cut oranges for half-time and helped wherever I was needed. Without realising it, I was building a place for myself in a game that didn’t yet fully make space for women.

In 1985, our club began fundraising at the old Wembley Stadium, working food booths on event days. What started as volunteering became a 22-year commitment. Long weekends, late nights, counting takings by hand, all to help our club raise funds to buy its own ground. It wasn’t glamorous, but it mattered. It showed me that contribution isn’t about visibility; it’s about impact.

Years later, when I met my husband, a football referee, I returned to football administration. I joined the Harlow & District Football League and later took on roles within the Essex Senior League, at a time when everything was done by post and landline. There were fewer women in those rooms then, too, but step by step, that began to change.

Since 2006, I’ve served the Essex Senior League in several roles, from Assessor Co-ordinator to Fixtures Secretary, Assistant Appointments Officer and now League Secretary. None of it was part of a grand plan. It was simply about saying yes when help was needed.

International Women’s Day is about recognising that progress often comes quietly, through dedication, resilience and a willingness to step forward, even when you don’t quite see yourself represented.

Football has changed enormously over the past four decades, and opportunities for women and girls in the game are stronger than ever. But those changes are built on years of volunteers, administrators, coaches and supporters who kept turning up.

Forty years later, football has shaped my family’s life. Our children are now referees and coaches themselves. The game that once felt like my brother’s world has become ours.

I never became the journalist I once planned to be. Instead, I became part of football’s ongoing story, and on International Women’s Day, I’m proud to say that story includes women like me.

Michelle Dorling