The former Lioness and Maggie Murphy talk about their work at Lewes FC, the club with equal investment in their women’s and men’s teams
“I hope one day we don’t have to have special days and every single day is International Women’s Day,” says Claire Rafferty. It is a sentence that sums up the former
England player’s involvement with Lewes FC as a board member, because in their corner of East Sussex equality is not a gimmick or a T-shirt slogan; it is enshrined.
In 2017 the fan-owned club committed to equal investment, support and pay for their women’s and men’s teams. In 2021, 100 years after women’s
Football was banned by the FA, and 50 years after the ban was lifted, Lewes are still the only club in Europe to have taken the stance. “It’s shocking really, isn’t it?,” says Rafferty, who was a part-time analyst with Deutsche Bank when she played and now works for her former club
Chelsea, in the commercial team. “I’m always very proud to say that I’m involved in Lewes because of it. It has been quite nice going back into training, and then just getting a gauge for the culture of the team and the environment, that’s where you can see it working. It’s easy to say we’re treating the teams equally on paper.”