‘This generation won’t think of football as being just for boys’: how the Lionesses have changed sport for girls

100,000 more girls are playing football in England than they did in 2017. At a training session near Ipswich, we meet the under-12s who love the game

“Wooh! Good finish,” calls out coach Ian Westlake as 10-year-old TJ Spurling fires a shot at goal. “Set it,” he shouts to the next player in line, “and then run. You want to come off your left foot.”

It’s halfway through the Kesgrave Kestrels’ regular 90-minute Thursday evening training session – somewhere between the opening drills and the finishing game – and a brisk southwesterly wind is blowing in from the Suffolk coast nine miles away, gusting across the pitch of blue artificial turf.

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