When the Premier League paused in November to accommodate FIFA’s latest folly, a wretched winter World Cup in Qatar, we marked women’s football month. It allowed this website to be true our founding principles – writing about football fearlessly – from the fans perspective. It meant we give Fulham FC Women’s first match at Craven Cottage in two decades the coverage it deserved and seeing Mary Southgate, who I first met when we were both much younger sitting in the Hammersmith End, lead the Whites onto the hallowed turf almost had this correspondent in floods of Fulhamish tears in the press box.

Football should be for all – not just those who have always been allowed to play it – and the women’s game has come a long way in a short space of time. Fulham have been proud pioneers, from the Friends of Fulham side who punched above their weight in reaching FA Cup finals to Mohamed Al-Fayed’s vision of the club he owned leading a professional revolution to match the one he witnessed at the 1999 World Cup in the United States. There’s some symmetry in the fact that Marco Silva’s side have flown across the Atlantic just as the 2023 tournament is about to get underway in New Zealand.

Aotearoa has encapsulated the cultural change itself. Only last week the All Blacks were kicked out of their Eden Park fortress to make way for the Football Ferns, who will open the tournament against Norway shortly. That would have been unthinkable even a couple of years ago, but there was very little grumbling about the Ian Foster’s side ceding centre stage to a team courageously captained by Ali Riley. It helped that the All Blacks maintained their awesome Auckland record by smashing the Springboks, but the Black Ferns and the remarkable Ruby Tui, who memorably led crowd in signing the Tutira Mai after edging out England in the Rugby World Cup final last year, did some heavy lifting of their own.

New Zealand’s largest city was rocked by a shooting on the eve of the tournament but Kiwis know how to rally round in tough times and, spurred on by the support of former Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, plenty of people will catch a glimpse of the amazing Ada Hegerberg for the first time this evening. The Norwegian’s struggle for equality, which saw her miss the last tournament, is a microcosm of what female footballers have faced forever: when the legendary Lionesses have had to tackle the feckless FA ahead of a championship they could win.

The favourites, as ever, will be the incredible United States side, who won their battle for equal pay with US Soccer last year. Chloe Kelly’s magical moment at Wembley last summer showed a new audience that the women’s football isn’t the poor relation of our beautiful game but something that stands strong alone. The staging of the biggest ever Women’s World Cup in Australasia, where women’s sport has been recognised more readily that in man other continents, will allow young boys and girls in the UK to familiarise themselves with stars like Sam Kerr, Alex Popp and Asisat Oshoala over their breakfast table.

We’ll take the time to tell a few stories from Fulham’s past while encouraging our readers to get along and support Steve Jaye’s side at Motspur Park as their own pre-season preparations kick off. And if anyone’s get a left foot like Tia Foreman, they might want to take a look at the Fulham Foundation’s Summer Schools. If you’ve never watched a women’s game before, give it a glance: you’ll make this son of an Auckland native smile, at the very least.