As a newly anointed Trustee of the Women’s Sport Trust, I see it as a real privilege to champion women’s sport in all its gloriously different forms. With no disrespect to the mens’ games, there’s just such a refreshing sense of individuality, originality and freedom that is evident not just with players, but also with their fans.

When I think about female football fandom specifically, I often think about our PR person Noel’s daughter. She's 12, she plays in goal and loves Mary Earps. She was a Chelsea fan until Earps came along. So she became a Man U fan (despite her grandad being staunch Leeds and all the trappings that come with that). She now supports PSG and Chelsea again. And, of course, her favourite team are The Lionesses.

The reason I bring this up (and not just because Noel is an incorrigible attention-seeker - although that might have some influence on me indulging him) is that while your average EPL or EFL supporter might be appalled at these shocking levels of duplicity and so-called glory-hunting, if you look at it through the lens of new female fandom, it’s absolutely typical. Cherry is 100% a core fan.

And there are loads and loads of fans of women’s football. In fact, we know there is a 26m addressable market out there - a massive swathe of the country who look, think, interact with, and love football - but in a totally different way to the generations preceding them.

And because of this, the way things are ‘normally done’ are struggling to gain traction and connect properly. Female fans feel underrepresented and frustrated. For many brands, this is because they have fallen into the trap of approaching the women’s game in exactly the same way as they do for the men’s game. And - mic drop - imitation just ain't gonna fly these days.

Female football fans think in a completely new way, and brands need to understand that they need a deeper understanding of this entirely new fandom to attract an excitingly fresh and willing audience.

Having worked with the Barclays Womens Super League and Championship over the last four seasons, and written our own thought leadership piece ‘The Seven Deadly Sins of Marketing Women’s Sport’ a couple of years ago, we care enormously about truly catering for these fans - really understanding them - rather than patronising them or their elite athlete superheroes.

So, bravo to the newly-formed Women’s Professional Leagues Limited for not only carrying out an extensive segmentation and ethnography project across this new fandom, but being generous enough to share it at the Women’s Sport Trust  latest Visibility Report presentation session. And unlike most convoluted and opaque audience pieces crudely split by demographics, this one is based on their relationship with football, and is deliciously effortless in its simplicity.

In it, you’ll find just three distinct segments that brands need to consider when trying to engage with modern fans of women’s football.

The Core Fan

This group of around 3 million have been on the full journey of the rise of women’s pro football. They are emotionally invested but have a fluid fandom. They appreciate elite performance and see football as a utopian experience, free of the toxic masculinity that still plagues the men’s game. They are terrific cheerleaders for women’s football, and their passion is instrumental in bringing more fans to the game. However, they have huge frustrations, because media and content is still so biased towards the men’s game.

Brands need to tap into their advocacy, providing them with the sort of content that makes them proud of the game, so that they can share the excitement with their wider network and bring more followers into it.

The Free Fan

This group of roughly 8m are likely to be football novices, coming into the sport through international tournaments. They love the Lionesses and while they are quietly passionate they think football is just football. They are drawn in by the culture and see football as a way of finding a community of like-minded people.

Brands should use any opportunity they have to showcase the personality and individuality of the players, attracting more people who just might not have considered football, or indeed footballers, as something relevant for them.

The Secondary Fan

This is by far the largest group with 15m already highly addicted to football. And with so much going on in the men’s game they have limited capacity to fully engage. But they appreciate that the game is different and are curious to know more.

As these are the more traditional football fans, the strongest hook for brands to engage with this audience will be the entertainment of football itself - the skills, the goals, the dynamism and energy.

With the domestic leagues now brilliantly less predictable and the Women’s Euros back next year, brands have got an incredible opportunity to do something truly fresh that doesn’t just ape the men’s game. I can’t wait to see what’s coming down the line.

And instead of the women’s game imitating the men’s game, it might be the beginning of the women’s game influencing the men’s. Whilst the core men’s fans in the UK aren’t quite ready to swap teams yet, there is already a new cohort of younger, more international fans of the men’s game who are more than comfortable switching allegiances with their heroes. Isn’t it lovely that it’s the most modern futuristic end of the male fandom spectrum that is closest to female fandom?