‘We don’t want to stay outside of football field anymore’

Players of Banban FC put their hands together before a football match at Hongdong Middle School in Hongseong-gun, South Chungcheong Province. Courtesy of Banban FC

“Becoming the main character after only supporting the main character who scores a goal with a picturesque shot is a dramatic experience that breaks down the stereotype and restriction applied to women. But for me, that‘s not the only thing. The biggest attraction is learning the attitude of ’life not just chasing the ball.’”

Noh Hae-won (35), who met with Kyunghyang Shinmun on June 19, answered the question, "Why is the football boom among women these days?” She is the captain of the women’s football club Banban FC in Hongdong-myeon, Hongseong-gun, South Chungcheong Province. The club includes students in their 20s who have returned to the village to learn farming, and housewives in their 40s and 50s with two or three children. What they all have in common is that most of them have never played football before. Noh, a mother of three children, is no different. She collected stories of herself and her teammates, which were recently published in a book titled, “Countryside, Women, and Football.”

The club started in 2021 with a suggestion of a physical education teacher at a local school’s after-school program that The suggestion of “Let’s make a female football team and play games” stimulated Noh's curiosity. ”I‘ve always been a fan of Tottenham Hotspur and Son Heung-min, and in high school, I won an award for being the manager of my football team. But for me, football was not about ‘running’ but about ‘watching,’" she said.

It was her female friends who were older than her who gave her the courage to play football instead of just watching it. ”I saw my friend with three kids playing football, and I thought, ’I can do it, too.‘“

The female players gathered at the local middle school field every weekend. They sweat during the day and even under the light of only two street lamps at night. Their first friendly game was against kids from a neighboring elementary school. The result was a crushing 0-13 defeat. However, the gap in scores narrowed as games were repeated, and they also participated in two official football competitions.

”I played so hard that I could taste blood in my throat. I was called ’fighter chicken‘ for the first time in my life. I didn't feel embarrassed. I liked the exhilarating feeling of showing myself as I was. In the past, I was busy hiding myself because of the gaze of others and fear of failure."

She said she felt like she was overcoming not only her limitations but also social limitations. “In ‘Slam Dunk’ and ‘The Last Match,’ women are not players, but managers, girlfriends who support the male protagonists. The women who were talked about during the 2002 Korea-Japan World Cup were those getting attention for their ‘appearance and clothes,’ not for their cheering. It wasn't until I started playing football that I realized that it wasn't natural for me to think, ‘It's natural to be a manager, not a player’ when I was in high school."

But she said she did not play football to be a “star” instead of a “supporting player.” ”At first we were just running around chasing the ball. Scoring a goal was my goal. Then, I gradually learned how to keep my position. Football requires not only strikers but also midfielders and wingers. As for defenders, the less the ball comes to them, the better for their team. My favorite play is about ‘assisting,’ where I don‘t score a goal, but help someone else score a goal.“

”I don’t want to stay outside the field anymore. But I‘m not going to just chase the ball either,“ she said. ”We don’t want to take the ‘lead role’ over the men, we just don‘t want to be denied the opportunity to step on the field or give it up. Once we’re on the field, we don‘t want to stand out, we just play our part. The biggest attraction I feel when I play football is that I can have the opportunity and reward to contribute to a common goal, whether I'm old or young, whether I'm a student or a mother of a child or a man or a woman."

※This article has undergone review by a professional translator after being translated by an AI translation tool.