A North-East women’s football team has become champions, despite two players needing mastectomies. Now, they have a new goal – to fight for changes around women’s health. PETER BARRON reports NO matter how England’s male footballers fare as the Euros get underway in Germany this week, it surely can’t compare with the special achievements of an amateur women’s team from the grass roots of County Durham.
What the Chester-le-Street Amazons have done goes way beyond football. Theirs is a victory for the human spirit. Not only have they been crowned champions in Division One of the Durham County FA League – the biggest success in the club’s history – they’ve done it while rallying round two team members, in their twenties, who’ve undergone mastectomies.
Now, the Amazons have a new goal: to use their triumph as a platform to campaign for changes in attitudes towards young women’s health. “I don’t want any other young woman to go through what I went through,” says Lydia Ward, unable to hold back the tears. “Young people’s health is brushed aside too easily.
” Central midfielder Lydia and goalkeeper, Emma Henderson, are both recovering from mastectomies with the support of their team-mates and coaching staff. Emma was 27, and working as a printer, when she was diagnosed with breast cancer in November 2022. She underwent a mastectomy the following month, and her eggs were frozen before she started six months of chemotherapy last year.
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