Semi-final defeat for the England women’s football team is greeted with disappointment but followers believe interest in the game will build

In the end, it was just a little bit too familiar for England fans. The hopes of a nation raised by a group of talented young footballers, only to have them crushed in the semi-final of a major tournament.

England’s Euro 2017 dream ends at hands of Van de Donk inspired Holland Read more

Despite going into the match as favourites, Mark Sampson’s team crashed out of the tournament, losing 3-0 to the hosts Holland with a third deflected goal finding its way into England’s net in the dying seconds of the match.

They were just two victories away from becoming the first senior England football team to win a major tournament since the World Cup in 1966, but it wasn’t to be.

Having suffered the semi-final heartache of the 2015 World Cup in Canada, there was more disappointment in the basement of Bad Sports in Hackney, east London, where members of local team Romance FC had gathered to watch the Lionesses with the players’ friends and families.

They were crammed in, in temperatures only experienced in underground bars in British summertime, causing some fans to moan that more places were not showing the Euro 2017 game. “More pubs need to get it on screen,” grumbled Minty Barnor, 28. “These women are changing things. When I was a girl, if you wanted to play you had to be the loud-mouth bolshie one. These players are showing any girl can play.”

And that will be the legacy of this competition, despite this heavy defeat. “I think the women have really shifted the dial in Holland,” said Felicia Pennant, who set up a magazine for female fans of the game called Season last year after realising there was little on the market for the growing tribe. “We saw a peak in interest after the World Cup in Canada and I hope we’ll see that again.”

Holland and England were both undefeated in their journey to the semi-final, but after England’s quarter-final victory against France, coupled with Germany’s shock exit from the competition, the Lionesses had become favourites.

But it was the Dutch who made a lively start in front of a deafening 27,000 home crowd at the De Grolsch Veste stadium and it came as little surprise when Vivianne Miedema scored after 22 minutes. A howl of despair rose from the sweaty crowd at Bad Sports, apart from a lone Dutch fan who was despondently ignored.

Play Video 1:50 England beaten 3-0 by Holland in Euro 2017 semi-final – video highlights

It seemed like a wake-up call for England but, despite flurry of chances before half time, they couldn’t level. Two more goals in the second half and England fans now have endured 51 years of hurt … and counting.

Maggie Hayes, a diehard Spurs fan, looked devastated after the final whistle. “I won’t lie, I’ve shed a tear, I’m really upset,” said the union worker who has followed the women’s team for 13 years. “I think they lost their bottle to be honest, but you have to be proud of them. They fought to the end.”

Like many gathered in the bar, she hoped interest in the women’s game inspired by their 2017 run would continue despite the defeat. “I love football to my core but there is something about the women’s that makes it so special,” she said. “At stadiums, you get rainbow flags, there are kids everywhere. As a woman, I can shout my head off and not worry about it; I hope the game never loses that.”

One person in the bar was happy at least. Rowinia Pinas, a Dutch national working in finance in London, had come on her own to cheer the team. “I’ve never watched the women play before but everyone in Holland is going crazy for this at the moment. They are so strong and so good!” she said, as those around her worried the labels off their beer bottles.

It is worth remembering that the Football Association banned women from playing for 50 years, with the argument that the sport was “quite unsuitable for females”. A semi-professional league was only introduced in 2011 but the FA has been making up for lost time since then: in 2016-17, it spent £14m on women’s football, more than any other European association.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest England fans at De Grolsch Veste stadium. Photograph: Dean Mouhtaropoulos/Getty Images

The game is already almost unrecognisable from six years ago. At the 2017 Euros, England took 21 support staff – including coaches, psychologists, video analysts, security and a chef – along with a squad of 23 players.

In De Grolsch Veste, fans who had travelled to the game said the team would learn from the defeat and build for the future. Asif Burhan, who travels around the world watching the men’s and women’s teams, said the team didn’t have a plan B when faced with Holland’s edge.

“We shouldn’t forget England have won five tournament games in a row, the best-ever since Ramsey’s 1966 team,” he said. “Jodie Taylor [who scored a hat-trick against Scotland and another goal against France] will be in the running for the end-of-year awards. England fans have travelled like never before. That is a legacy we hope will carry through to the Women’s Super League.”

Sophie Downey of Girls on the Ball, who, with her wife Rachel O’Sullivan, have travelled all over the world to watch every England game for the past five years, was finding it hard to be upbeat. “I’m absolutely devastated at the moment but this is football and it doesn’t take away from how proud of the girls we are,” she said.

But displaying an optimism well known, and regularly crushed, among England fans, she added: “Massive strides have been made by the group for where we were four years ago to now. I have no doubt they will dust themselves down, get up and go again to take on the World Cup in 2019.”