When Jo Treharne was 10 she played football at junior school. She was not allowed on the school team.
That was the ordinary shape of things for girls in England then, and for a long time afterwards. Most of the women who lived through it stopped playing and got on with something else. There was nowhere obvious to go.
Treharne did not stop. She waited, and then she built the thing that had not existed.
In January 2017 she started Canterbury Old Bags United, a recreational team for women aged 30 and over who had never had the chance to play. Around 40 women turn out for it now. They enter tournaments across the south east, play indoor futsal in the Kent League, and have travelled to the Old Girls' World Cup in France. The motto is "Bags for life".
"It's not a Zumba class, it's not an aerobics class, it's a bit different," Treharne has said of it. "It's just a bit of fun. Come rain or shine, we play football."
She is now women and girls' football development lead at Canterbury Eagles FC, a grassroots club that has been running since 1979. Three seasons ago the club's female section was two teams in the Kent Girls' League. It is now working towards eight youth teams and a senior women's side. A club celebration day drew more than 120 female players across youth, senior and recreational football, with the Old Bags beating Margate 8-0 on the day.
In July the Kent FA gave Treharne two awards at its Grassroots Workforce Awards at the Village Hotel in Maidstone: female pathway coach of the year, and the Lioness Award.
"When I was 10, I used to play at junior school but wasn't allowed on the school team," she said. "To get this nearly 50 years on makes me so happy."
On the coaching award she was characteristically quick to hand it on. "They're all fantastic humans and fantastic coaches. So to win this, I'm really chuffed."
The part of the story that has not been solved is the part nobody puts on an awards night. The Eagles have more girls and women wanting to play than they have grass to put them on.
"Our female section has absolutely exploded in the last couple of years," Treharne has said, "but the lack of training facilities means we can't expand any further." The club is inundated with enquiries and, in her words, literally turning people away. A proposed all-weather facility at Simon Langton Girls' School, which could have served thousands of people locally, was withdrawn after community objections.
That is the oldest problem in grassroots football and it is not fixed by enthusiasm. Somebody still has to find the pitch, book the slot, chase the lease and pay for the lights.
What Treharne's 50 years show is what happens when someone refuses to accept the answer they were given at 10 years old. Two teams became a section. A group of women in their thirties, forties and beyond became 40 players with a motto. The waiting list is the proof, and it is also the next problem.
