Arsenal today set a new British attendance record in women’s football at the Emirates for their game against Manchester United.
The Gunner Girls ran out 3-1 winners in an exciting, high quality encounter that was played in front of an incredible crowd of 60,160, a new record for a Barclays WSL match.
It is clear that the women’s game in Scotland has a long way to go to get to the stage where we can fill our stadiums with supporters for SWPL1 matches.
Celtic Park has the current record for SWPL for the games against Glasgow City and Hearts at the end of last season. Those records are in no danger of being broken this weekend, even with Celtic visiting Ibrox to take on current SWPL leaders theRangers.
Just over 700 Celtic supporters this morning discovered on The Celtic Star that the latest Ibrox club had cancelled their tickets – bought and paid for and with the money already in the Rangers coffers – because they don’t want to provide security at their own stadium but instead tried to get Celtic to pay the costs that theRangers felt they couldn’t pay themselves.
Celtic FC Women have hosted three games this season against theRangers and Celtic have provided safe environments for all spectators regardless of colours worn or team supported.
But when it’s theRangers turn they once again show they are not to be trusted and their fans won’t be allowed back to Celtic matches going forward. This is to the detriment of the women’s game in Scotland and it all happened on a day when Arsenal attracted a crowd of 60,160 for a league match against one of their biggest rivals.
Scotland’s shame right enough.
