![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/04\/1000063395.jpg\")
Chris Lockwood as a teenager. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\nWhile climate change is threatening football in general, women\u2019s teams, especially grassroots and local teams, are particularly at risk from flooding and damaged pitches, as they often play at grounds with weaker infrastructure.<\/p>\n
Obviously, some things have greatly improved in women\u2019s football since I was a player, but this is mostly for top flight teams where there\u2019s greater room for investment to protect the pitches.<\/p>\n
Chris Lockwood as a teenager. Credit: Supplied<\/p>\n
Grassroots teams still face challenges with funding and the state of the grounds \u2013 especially increasing waterlogged pitches. In fact, a close friend admitted recently that she hasn\u2019t been able to play in weeks because of water-logged pitches in London where she usually plays.<\/p>\n
This research from the world\u2019s biggest football climate campaign highlights the urgent need for us all to tackle climate change<\/a> if we want to protect the game. It may feel overwhelming as an issue, but football has an incredible power to drive positive change if we all come together to take action.<\/p>\n This year\u2019s Great Save saw clubs helping to save kit from landfill by donating used sportswear to local groups and charities. On this issue alone there are so many longer-term initiatives they can now put into place: permanent kit donation or buy-back schemes, making sure their kits are made from fully recyclable materials, even creating new ranges of merch from up-cycled old shirts.<\/p>\n And there\u2019s so much that we can do as individuals as well \u2013 from passing on our own unused sportswear to give it a second life, walking or cycling more instead of driving, eating more veg, even taking shorter showers. These small actions may seem insignificant, but they help reduce waste and carbon \u2013 and imagine how much impact the UK\u2019s 36 million football fans can make when we come together.<\/p>\n Never miss an issue<\/p>\n Take advantage of our special subscription offer. Subscribe from just \u00a39.99 and never miss an issue.<\/p>\n I am passionate about protecting the future of women\u2019s football because I know what it did for me to be part of a team and club. It gave me confidence because I could play with freedom and nobody judged me. Football brings people together no matter who they are and where they are from.<\/p>\n When I was playing, it meant more to me than anything else in the world. Football gave me a purpose, friendship, confidence and a voice.\u00a0I want other young women to be afforded that same opportunity today and for decades to come.<\/p>\n With women\u2019s football<\/a> enjoying the best visibility and popularity in the sports history, it is vital that the necessary steps are taken to help protect its future from the impacts of climate change. It\u2019s been a huge privilege to be part of the history of women\u2019s football. Now it\u2019s about taking action together to protect the game for the next generation of female players and fans.<\/p>\n While the figures in this report are specifically looking at the threats to football \u2013 cricket, rugby, hockey \u2013 all outdoor sports are likely to be affected by the more extreme weather expected in the coming years.\u00a0 We know what to do about it, so it\u2019s up to all of us to help protect the games we love.<\/p>\n Do you have a story to tell or opinions to share about this?\u00a0Get in touch and tell us more<\/a>.\u00a0Big Issue exists to give homeless and marginalised people the opportunity to earn an income.\u00a0To support our work buy a copy of the magazine<\/a>\u00a0or get the app from the\u00a0App Store<\/a>\u00a0or\u00a0Google Play<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"While climate change is threatening football in general, women\u2019s teams, especially grassroots and local teams, are particularly at…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21028,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5008],"tags":[748,7029,13580,393,13581,94,4884,93,16,15,741,13582],"class_list":{"0":"post-21027","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-england","8":"tag-britain","9":"tag-climate","10":"tag-earth-day","11":"tag-england","12":"tag-environment-and-community","13":"tag-football","14":"tag-great-britain","15":"tag-sport","16":"tag-uk","17":"tag-united-kingdom","18":"tag-weather","19":"tag-womens-football"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21027","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21027"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21027\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21027"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21027"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21027"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}