I really read some good comments on this one, and it sounding as though most people agree with one another. Forgive mih if this one kinda long.....but ting on mih chest.
Personally, I feel MOST women went to the football games in the stadium during the WC semis...because they were genuinely interested in the country making the WC finals. Probably because of the hype, they were no different to the male waggonists, old people and little children in that regard. If they coulda get a ticket...then they woulda go to the game...if not no big thing. Unlike some breddas who would pay a pong and a crong to be inside the stadium.
There are the fervent female football supporters, but they in the significant minority compared to the fervent male supporters, probably for reasons most af you all so adequately described. Ah feel when yuh meet a female warrior, she badder than the male oui.
I think the ones who hold the real trump is the TTFF. In my opinion TTFF has done very little to NOTHING to promote football in this country...particularly where the ladies concerned. What we are exposed to is NEWS about national football...but there is no marketing of the sport. Footballl things does happen in this country by chance, or follow fashion, not because thought was put into it. Allyuh ever listen to those 5 min 'sports roundup' on the radio stations...3/4 of the news is foreign sports. TV6, Channel 3, and Gayelle Sports does come on around the same time and most of it is foreign news. Most times they show a 10 sec highlight of the goals scored in the PFL, or somebody local organising body collecting a cheque for development of whichever sport. Eddie Hart grounds, Aranguez Savannah, Queens Park Savannah, Skinner Park, just to mention a few does have 'sweat' going on every evening...most time at least four different 'sweat' at the same time on the same ground. As soon as it dark and sweat done, man does talk about Real Madrid, Barcelona, Manu, NBA and anything except, PFL. Man go quicker talk about Crab Connection and Joe Public before they talk 'bout PFL.
America real big on marketing...they could sell a fridge to ah eskimo. In 1990 America was nothing in football, ten years later they near the top ten in the world...this time around they were almost one of the seeded teams for the world cup. We have people they call sports journalists down here, but they does only report sports news...is a normal journalist who they tell to go and report on a game in the stadium. I feel Lisana Liburd is only real sports journalist we have in the country...de man does do a great job in researching and keeping the country informed about our footballers and their dealings, both local and foreign. We don't market the local football on the whole as it should and think up intuitive ways to get the public to come and support the games. The reporters have to brave the highway and go down south and cover the games, not only cover games in North.
Another major thing is that we can't expect really big crowds to every game as compared to other countries, but at least a comparable percentage. Most of the major cities with teams have an average of 10 million people...if 10% interested in the sport and support the team that is already 100,000 people, if half of dem attend a game, then 50, 000 people in the stadium. T&T have appr 1 million...if we apply the same maths then we should expect around 5000 people to come out to support the football occasionally, but the average PFL game does have about 100 people, except in Grande, where you have plenty home support. I feel we have too little bit of people to share up between all the sports in TT, so the associations have to really work harder at marketing their respective games. So even if people interested in football in this country...they not fanatic.
