by Emma Hartfield
Thursday, October 11, 2001

We've all seen the tabloid tales of womanising footballers and read about the occasional Rugby Love Rat, but cricketers get their fair share of groupies too. The Pakistan team in particular has a huge female fan-base, and it's only reasonable to assume that our handsome young England recruits have more than their share of supporters too.

But England's women claim that they don't get the same sort of attention as their male counterparts. "Groupies? You mean apart from my dad?" asks captain Clare Connor. "We don't get men throwing themselves at us, they're more the real die-hard supporters who come to all the home games and are very well-informed. They have their autograph books and pictures -- and seem to know more about us than we do. Our male fans are very sweet and chatty. It's good to have the support."

She says, though, that the team are not jealous of the sort of attention the men are used to. Former England captain Rachael Heyhoe-Flint agrees. "We had very nice, enthusiastic male followers who bought me drinks. We didn't have to fight them off." She dismisses the idea of male groupies: "There wasn't such a thing when I was a player. Probably our biggest fan was Sir Jack Hayward, who sponsored the women's team for five years. He always said `I love women and I love cricket!'"

These days one of the biggest fans of the women's game is Julian Lillington, 32, a taxi driver from London. Julian has travelled as far as Australia and New Zealand to watch England play, spending about £3000 on each trip. "I got into cricket when I was unemployed in 1993. England were hosting the women's World Cup so I went along to see a few games. The first game I saw was against Denmark at Banstead. I got to meet some of the players afterwards, including Clare Taylor. She also plays women's football and I got to know her after I'd seen a few of her games.

"That's one of the reasons I like women's sports: it's much more friendly than men's games. It's easy to chat to the players and they've got all the time in the world for you. I didn't know that much about cricket when I first went to watch, but the players are happy to explain anything. They also play simply for the love of the game as they don't get paid much."

Julian doesn't like the term groupie. "I'm just an enthusiastic follower of women's cricket. You don't get groupies in this game: most of the women are married or spoken for and it's not like the men's game. It's not as glamorous but that's why I like it."

England could do with more fans where Julian came from.

Emma Hartfield is a freelance writer.

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