By Emma Best AM

When I learnt that East London Mosque had banned women and girls over 12 from participating in a ‘family-friendly’ charity fun run in Victoria Park, I felt a familiar anger - one that takes me back to my own childhood, when girls who loved sport could still be made to feel as though they were doing something they shouldn't.

Growing up playing football in the nineties and 2000s, the hangover of female prohibition still lingered across the grassroots game. It could still be dismissed, marginalised, and actively discouraged by people who insisted it was a "man's game".

Breaking through those barriers required determination, and once they were - for the most part – smashed, we did believed no young girl or woman would ever be told she couldn't take part just because of her gender.

How can it be when the Lionesses and the Red Roses win world cup titles in London that some in this city would still happily turn girls turned away from physical activity?

This was not a male-only event to be clear, this specifically........

© LBC