Women’s football pioneer honoured by James painting

For the BBC’s Extraordinary Portraits series, former England and Liverpool goalkeeper David James has depicted “lost Lioness” Gill Sayell. Here is her story.

“I had to pretend to be a boy”.

Gill Sayell clearly recalls her first game playing football. She cut her hair short, called herself Billy, and played for the boys because she was in primary school when there was no local girls’ team.

The Football Association (FA) had banned the women’s game from playing on professional grounds and pitches of affiliated clubs in the 1960s, a prohibition that lasted almost 50 years.

Undeterred, Sayell continued to play on park pitches with her four brothers. “Football is my first love, and I’ve always wanted to play”, she said.

She would be scouted at a charity football game a few years later to represent an “england” squad in Copa 71, an unofficial women’s World Cup competition taking place in Mexico.

She was 14 years old and had never flown before.

“There were so many people there”, Sayell said. “We didn’t really know what was going on”.

However, on her return home there was no paparazzi. Instead, she was banned for three months and the team’s manager, Harry Batt, was banned for life.

Despite this, Sayell became a founding member of the women’s soccer team at Arsenal and plays today.

Because I was the only young girl in my country to have a football kit, Sayell said, “It’s so nice to see all the young girls now sporting their football kits.”

Former England goalkeeper David James’ portrait, which is part of the BBC series Extraordinary Portraits, which features artists who have inspiring personal stories, is now honored on behalf of the footballer.

“To be chosen to be part of it, like with Mexico, it’s a surreal moment”, Sayell said, beaming.

While James is well known for his 572 Premier League appearances and his roles in England, Liverpool, and West Ham, to name a few, he also has a 20-year painting career.

In his earlier works, he depicts England’s World Cup-winning captain Bobby Moore receiving the trophy from Queen Elizabeth II.

James called Sayell a “trailblazer” and a “pioneer” of women’s football.

As she entered the Azteca Stadium to compete in Copa 71, Sayell, who was only 4 feet 10 inches tall, recalled her stomach turning.

When it was first built, the stadium had a capacity to hold more than 100, 000 people, which was bigger than Wembley, with Sayell calling it a “cauldron of heat and noise”.

While the team did not make it out of the group stages in the tournament, she recalls the players being “treated really well” and being “respected” as footballers.

“You think, ‘ well, women’s football is going to start now – it’s going to take off big time when we get home'”, she explained.

“We thought we’d done something wrong, because we got banned”, Sayell said, explaining how she and her fellow players did not talk about their experience, adding that at the time she felt “a little bit embarrassed”.

James believes a lot of what Sayell and her cohort did was “neglected”, explaining: “The system did not help Gill and the young girls who went out”.

They were banned by the Women’s Football Association (WFA).

The WFA was attempting to organize nationwide trials for an official England team after helping the FA to overturn its 1921 ban on the women’s game.

Sayell said the experience strengthened her resolve and that she continued playing after the ban was lifted.

At Arsenal she played in men’s hand-me-down kits, and she was the team’s first female player of the year for the 1987-1988 season.

“It was progression, but I think it could have happened a lot earlier than it did”, Sayell said.

She says, “I’m so happy that it’s happening for the girls and the women of today.”

In 2022, England won the Women’s Euros, beating Germany at a packed Wembley Stadium, with the crowd including some of the Copa 71 squad.

James remarked, “All that suffering and work put in decades ago led to the realization that we could all celebrate women’s football.”

James decided to use her portrait as a “requiem representation of an amazing woman” in addition to her career references.

” You drive past a football pitch, pretty much at any time – there’ll be girls playing on there. And I believe that is a celebration of the way that Gill and her cohorts have dominated the women’s game, James said.

Before painting Sayell’s portrait, the artist spent time with her, learning about her life, and incorporating nods to her professional career in his artwork, such as the Copa 71 poster and a golden boot trophy.

However, James said he changed the painting” so many times “and was conscious of what Sayell and her family would think.

” As a footballer, I could go on a football field, I could do my thing and answer to myself whether I did well or badly, “he said.

James explained if people did not recognise Sayell’s story through her painting” I haven’t done what I was supposed to be doing as an artist. “

However, Sayell said she was” blown away “by the artwork, appreciating the nods to her career milestones, adding:” It just captures my journey.