Lionesses and the Value of the Pride.

Readers of this blog will be aware that for some years now I’ve been a supporter of the English women’s football team, nicknamed ‘the Lionesses.’ I’m not any more, and I would like to explain why.

The lionesses won two consecutive European championships in 2022 and 2025, and reached the final of the World Cup in 2024, losing by a single goal to Spain. That’s success on a grand scale and the politicians (or bureaucrats) decided to honour them in this year’s New Years honours list. The coach, Sarina Weigman, was awarded an honorary damehood (a damehood is the female equivalent of a knighthood, but the full award can only be given to British nationals. Weigman is Dutch.) They gave a CBE (that’s the most senior of the old Empire medals) to the captain, Leah Williamson, and they gave MBEs (the middle rank of the old Empire medals) to four of the players.

Why only four? All through the years of high success, Weigman and all the players have stressed that foremost among the reasons for their performance was the quality of togetherness in the squad. They worked for each other, played for each other, supported each other through good times and bad, and had a real one-for-all-and-all-for-one attitude. Or so they said.

So I ask again: why only pick out four? And on a personal level, probably the most notable absentee was a player called Lucy Bronze. She is one of the oldest and therefore most experienced members of the team, and one of the most influential. She is credited with being one of the best defenders in the world; is fast, strong, resourceful, scored some important goals, and assisted with several more. And best of all, she played the whole of the 2025 tournament with a broken leg, and yet played as well as ever. The break might have been a relatively minor fracture, but it was obvious in nearly every game that she was in pain much of the time. But she was awarded nothing.

And maybe the bigger picture is this:

Given what appears to be rank favouritism (or at least a serious error of judgement by politicians or bureaucrats who appear not to know how powerful team spirit is) applied to just four players, what effect will that have on the mentality of the squad? I feel that there is a very real danger that it might dent it irrecoverably. So why did those four players not gather around and decide to decline the award and take an 'all or none' stance? Let’s face it, an MBE is worth little to nothing in the modern world anyway.

I felt that Weigman and Williamson should have brought the squad together and said: ‘It isn’t right that some players have been singled out and others – the majority – ignored, and so we are going to decline ours. What you do is your choice, but we don’t want to see the spirit of the team adversely affected by this.’

As far as I know it didn’t happen, and as far as I know the four selected players are keeping their ‘honours.’ That disappoints me, and that’s why I’m not much of a fan any more.