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The women of LKKA: harassed by sexist abuse for playing football |
Women’s soccer team victims of ‘hate crime’
Years of abuse by youths comes to a head with firework attack
A CAMPAIGN of harassment against a woman’s football team in Camden reached a peak last week when players were attacked with live fireworks.
LLKA, a women-only team, have been the subject of sexist and homophobic abuse by youths since they began training at Castlehaven sports pitch eight years ago.
Players have become accustomed to being pelted with eggs and rocks from a nearby building site, and spat at or heckled by youths who object to seeing women playing the male-dominated sport.
Heidi Myfler, the team’s goalkeeper, was the first to spot a live firework that was thrown onto the pitch shortly after the team began playing.
She said: “I saw a ‘rocket’ come over and when it went out I wasn’t sure if I should approach it or not. Then more fireworks were thrown over the fence and they were shooting across the pitch in all directions. It was very dangerous.
“We could see the kids running around and hiding between the cars, watching the whole scene. I suppose that’s the fun of it for them.”
A similar attack a few years ago left a player badly burned by a firework.
LLKA member Gill Rimmer said the team had grown accustomed to being targeted.
She said: “We’ll generally get kids pushing their bikes through the middle of the game. If we ask them to get out of the way they shout abuse. We have had incidents where they’ve thrown eggs at us.”
Tired of having their training disturbed, club founder Andi Storey began meeting with local police a few years ago to arrange for PCSOs to patrol the area around 6.30pm, when the problems are at their worst.
Ms Storey said this made a difference immediately following an incident, but that patrols tended to drop off at other times.
“At the moment we’re lucky if we see them once a month,” she said.
“I can understand why these young people feel territorial about the pitch, as it is their area. We tried to talk to local agencies about getting some of the money we pay to use the pitch spent on an activity for them.
“The fact is, if we weren’t here on Tuesdays the lights would be off and the pitch closed. We’re not taking anything away from anyone.”
The team called Kentish Town police station during last Tuesday’s incident and officers attended the scene. A police spokeswoman said: “We would encourage victims of hate crime to come forward and report incidents to the police.” |
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