Bethlehem bends it like Beckham

LIKE the stars of Bend it like Beckham they cannot wear shorts until they get to the football training ground in case they cause offence with "immodest" dress. To add to their woes, the Bethlehem girls’ football team practice yard at the local university has been the target of shooting by Israeli troops during the worst days of the intifada.

The team is still searching for a pitch in and around the Palestinian town that is big enough for them to begin training to compete 11-a-side; one that is not too sandy or stony or located in a village that would disapprove of young women playing football.

Despite all these obstacles, the team last week returned from playing a five-a-side tournament in Jordan, competing against other Arab women’s teams, where they won one out of four games.

Established just two years ago, Bethlehem girls’ was the first Palestinian women’s football team, although now they have some opposition in the form of a new squad set up in Ramallah. They are also the only Palestinian team to compete in international or regional competitions.

In 2003, two young Bethlehem University students, Honey Thaljieh and Shatha Bannoura, approached the university’s athletics director, Samar Araj Mousa, asking that they be allowed to form a girls’ football team.

"We were always being told that girls don’t play football, that our bodies were not made for the sport," 20-year-old Thaljieh, a business studies student explained. "All we wanted to do is prove the opposite."

A keen sportswoman, Thaljieh comes from a family of football followers - "even my mother watches it on TV" - and had played football with her brothers as a child. "It’s my passion, absolutely," said Thaljieh, who is now captain of the national team.

After much debate and discussion, which even saw Mousa survey some 500 local residents asking if they approved of women’s football - 85% said yes - the search for suitable players began and a call went out to both the female university population and local high schools.

After a series of trials, 22 girls aged 13 to 21 signed up and three teams were formed. The Palestinian Ministry of Sport threw in their support and a male coach, Raed Ayad, agreed to begin training the girls.

Organising practice sessions was a formidable task in itself, as Bethlehem, which is only a few kilometres from the southern outskirts of Jerusalem, faces curfews and frequent outbreaks of shooting between Israeli troops and Palestinian militants.

Mousa would wait for lulls in the violence before summoning the girls to a training session by phone "often only at an hour or so’s notice." If training proved too dangerous she would give balls to the team members to "take home and practice with your brothers."

Since the beginning of the intifada, Bethlehem became a ghost town - with tourists only returning in recent months as the quiet continues.

"There’s really nothing here for young people to do, which is why sport is so important. It really keeps their spirits up," explained Mousa as we drove through the West Bank town.

The girls’ team has attracted funding from the English Football Association and now Mousa is seeking assistance from Fifa to create football training programmes for schoolgirls as young as eight.

Ideally, Mousa wants to see other women teams being formed across the West Bank and Gaza. She added: "But it’ll be difficult to play tournaments because of the wall," pointing to Israel’s controversial security barrier that now separates Bethlehem from Jerusalem.

The bulk of Bethlehem’s team members are Arab Christians with about a quarter, Muslim. Cultural pressures can still be an issue for the girls with one woman refusing permission for her 15-year-old granddaughter to travel to Jordan for last week’s tournament on the grounds that "young girls don’t travel without their family".

Still, Mousa said the parents were largely supportive of their daughters’ efforts. "All of their families are mad football fans," she said with a grin.

But for young women in their early 20s, other potential obstacles emerge in the form of fiancs and husbands. "That’s why in the Arab world you don’t see too many women above the age of 22 or so playing football," said 42-year-old Mousa, herself a mother of four children. "Once they finish university and are engaged to be married, there is enormous pressure for them to give up the sport."

Thaljieh is adamant that this will not be her fate. "I won’t want him if he doesn’t like me playing soccer."

Regardless of the similarities with their own lives, none of the team members knew of the British film, Bend it Like Beckham, the tale of young British Asian girl determined to play football.

"But hang on, we’ve heard of David Beckham," piped up Dalia Kharoufeh who only began playing last year. The 20-year-old accounting student went on to say she did not think much of the Real Madrid star player, preferring the Brazilian Ronaldo. "Beckham didn’t play well in the European championships last year and missed a penalty. That did it for me."