h2g2 The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy: Earth Edition

Honestly, MB are you Mike Newell in disguise?

The most one-sided football match I've ever watched involved Doncaster Belles. It was a Women's FA Cup quarter-final, and it finished Leyton Orient Ladies 0, Doncaster Belles 14.

Surely for much of their time at the top, they were better than the men's team. Is it known if the two sides ever played one another?

many thanks to ormy for sportingly pointing out my missed point! i may not be dead just yet!

No problem, riotact. I want to win the mousemat fair and square!

I doubt if Doncaster Belles ever played against Doncaster Rovers, because the FA are rather stern about men and women playing football together. However, there are certainly some female teams who are much more successful that their male counterparts, and that still includes Doncaster Rovers Belles, as the Doncaster women's team is now rather clumsily named. Here's the only place where you can still see Leeds United doing well in the Premier League: http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/women/table/default.stm .

Aye by beating someone who only sees Scottish Fitba in the flesh. That's fair and square.

does anyone here go watch the ladies play? a couple of years ago OL had 6 players from the USWNT and i caught 3 or 4 matches... it was fun to watch, but one of the games was a friendly against the OL U-16 boys and the little cads handed the ladies their fannies in bite-size pieces... there is a big difference.

I have seen a few women's games besides that remarkable cup tie I mentioned earlier. I've been to see Bradford's women's team now and again, though sadly they've followed the Bradford men in slipping a couple of levels down from their former Premier status. Yes, riotact, there certainly are big differences between the men's and women's games. Oddly enough, shortly before we started talking about this here I read this article - http://www.bbc.co.uk/wear/content/articles/2007/01/04/sunderland_womens_fc_feature.shtml - about Sunderland's women's team, in which their 'keeper says she wishes people would appreciate that men's and women's footie are different and stop comparing the two. She makes the analogy with tennis, where people appreciate that they're going to get different things from a men's match and a ladies' match.

Of course, this whole discussion could be a red herring as far as Fantasy Football is concerned - GreyDesk never actually *said* that he was going to do a week of women's fixtures. It's fine by me if he does, though. Heck, I'll try and forecast any games as long as the statistics are available online!

Mr Drawer: may I remind you that the games I see in the flesh are all currently taken from League One and the UniBond Premier, neither of which feature in FF very regularly. So I hardly think they constitute a huge advantage!

>>The scores across the board (apart from Orcus)<<



In the words of Arnie...

I'll be back

I saw a woman score at ER in Lucas Radebe's testimonial. For Leeds, against Bruce Grobbelaar. Not quite Rovers vs Belles, but it's an anecdote...

Manchester United's ladies team was disbanded as a 'cost-cutting' measure after the takeover.

Th ladies team themselves paid for their own kits, training and match facilities, and transport. In fact all they had that was funded or ownedby Manchester United Plc was the name.

The ladies petitioned for continued use of the brand but were refused. A petition that reportedly carried Sir Alex's Signature, as well as many o the United First Team (ont know how true that last bit is)