There are plenty of ways to measure progress in football, but some of the most powerful are the simplest. A child turning up, joining in, and finally seeing the game as something that belongs to them. That is the sort of change Beth Mead was talking about when she reflected on McDonald’s Fun Football sessions for girls — and the numbers behind it are hard to ignore.
Mead said she was proud to be part of something special, adding that it had allowed her to help create memories for a lot of different children. More importantly, she pointed to the bigger picture: girls’ participation in Fun Football sessions has increased by 60% since 2022. That is not a gentle rise. That is a serious shift, and it tells you the appetite is there when the door is actually opened.
A game that now reaches more girls than ever
The broader backdrop matters here. The Women’s Super League launched back in 2011, and since then the women’s and girls’ game has moved at a pace that would once have sounded optimistic, even unrealistic. By the end of last year, the target for 90% of schools to offer girls equal access to football through PE lessons at Key Stages 2 and 3 had been met three years early. That is significant on its own. It shows this is not just about elite success; it is about access.
Mead knows exactly why that access matters. She said that growing up, she would have loved nothing more than to have something like Fun Football available to her. Instead, she recalled going to a football session in her local village where it was all boys except her. There were, as she put it, quite a few hurdles to be jumped. Looking back, she said there was nothing like the Fun Football programme for her as a child.
That is why her comments land. They are not polished marketing lines from a player far removed from the grassroots reality. They are the words of someone who lived the gap between talent and opportunity. She said she felt lucky to be accepted and join in, and even joked that she was the roughest of the lot, according to the coach anyway. It is a small detail, but a telling one: football was there for her only because someone made room.
England success has helped, but the work is not done
The recent rise in participation has not happened in a vacuum. England’s success on the biggest stages has helped shift expectations, and Mead has been central to that story too. She helped England win its second Euro title in 2025, while the England Lionesses won back-to-back UEFA Women’s Euros titles. Add in the visibility of major tournament wins and the picture becomes clearer: success at the top has helped fuel belief at the bottom.
Sue Day made that point strongly, saying there are record levels of participation in schools and clubs and plenty to be proud of, but no room for complacency. She stressed that the momentum must be used to drive the game forward, with everyone responsible for building on the legacy of the Lionesses so the game continues to thrive for generations to come. That is the right warning. Progress is real, but it can stall if people start treating it like the job is done.
And this is where Mead’s role matters beyond the pitches and the trophies. She is not only a name on a team sheet or a scorer of goals. She is part of the image young girls now see when they think about football as an option, not a favour. If a six-year-old can walk into a session and feel the game is for her, that is not a side issue. That is the whole point.
Mead is also back in England duty, named in the squad for Women’s World Cup qualifying games against Greece on October 9 and 13. That keeps her at the centre of the elite game, but her remarks about Fun Football are a reminder that the most meaningful victories are not always the loudest ones. A 60% rise since 2022 is a proper marker of change. The challenge now is to make sure it is not just a surge, but a standard.
