'See Us As We Are': A campaigning preseason shirt for Lewes FC Women

If women’s football is to maintain the inclusive and joyful culture which sharply distinguishes it from the men’s game, it needs to retain its own identity. It should be free to act independently with its own thoughts and agency, uninfluenced by what men’s football has done to date.

Independent clubs are unlikely to hold much sway in the NewCo, as the top tier of women’s football is now solely occupied by Premier League associated women’s teams, and Lewes FC is now relegated from the Championship to the third tier, so no longer part of it. For this reason, I was really keen that Lewes FC wear shirts this season that reflect a strong female design. Something that distinguishes them from the uniform that male footballers have traditionally worn. I was wary of asking our female players if they want to depart from the norm, because they have sometimes been effectively gaslit - like most female footballers - by men’s football culture. They, like many women in male bastions, may well believe that to be taken seriously as professional footballers they must speak the language of, adhere to the behavioural codes of, and wear the costumes of, men. But women are not small men. They are women. And as Mary Beard said in her book ‘Women and Power’, ‘You cannot easily fit women into a system that is already coded as male’.

Do we want women’s football to be another branch of - a spare rib to - men’s? Do we want money to rule the roost, and merely existing male (and female) fans of the men’s game to be catered to? Or will we allow the game, the stereotype-busting narrative, the diverse fans, the more free-spirited, traditionally feminine values of inclusivity and non-violent enjoyment, to grow and develop as they might, if only we could let them?

Patriarchy’s ways are not above scrutiny. We do not have to follow them blindly. At Lewes FC we have been on a path-less-travelled since 2017. In order to encourage audiences to see women as women and not as would-be versions of men, this preseason we launch a female-designed shirt, which breaks from the usual patterns of a football shirt this coming Sunday. We wear our shirt across our hearts and it represents our purpose and our values. Our shirts will show that as a football club - of all things! - it is possible not to follow men, and moreover for men to proudly support, and take a lead from, women. Using the shirt fronts - the most prominent platform in football - we will ask stakeholders in football, once and for all, to #SeeUsAsWeAre.

The #SeeUsAsWeAre shirt is designed by Sussex-based artist - and one of Lewes FC’s 2500 owners -?Charlotte Colbert, who works to deconstruct socio-political narratives around gender. One of Colbert’s motif’s is a large eye which is emblazoned across the shirts. Of the eye Colbert says: My work is often about utopias and narratives and how we can envisage positive alternative futures for ourselves. Lewes FC with its groundbreaking work on gender equality for players, its welcoming and catering to different demographics at the home ground, and human-centred football strategy, is actively enacting the changes it advocates for. The eye in the shirt symbolises visibility and positive dreams’.

The symbolic eye on Lewes FC Women’s shirts will represent a way of seeing things that insists on the visibility of women. It will provide an essential lens through which to view the traditionally marginalised. It will symbolise the way the club has changed the perception of football to countless women and girls, and men and boys too.

It will also allude to Lewes Football Club 's focus on targets of empowerment that other football clubs are not even dreaming of, never mind seeing and embodying as Lewes does.

The eye symbol, looming large, will make it easy for audiences to immediately grasp Lewes FC’s unique purpose and narrative in the football world, as we rebuild after relegation at the hands of Premier League-associated teams. It will demand attention (yes, literally eyeballs), and women’s right not to be patronised. It says, ‘See Us. See Us As We Are’.

In keeping with Lewes FC’s aims to include the whole community in its messaging, and to use football as a vehicle for social change, the shirt:

·????? questions the usual ideas of football shirt design

·????? connects football with art in the wider culture

·????? invites people to join us by becoming owners of our community-owned club for ￡50 a year.

Thanks to Colbert for her talent and advocacy. Join us this Sunday for our first women's preaseson home game at the Dripping Pan, and…come on you Rooks!!