A cruel Soccer AM skit from 2002 has gone viral – showing just how far women’s football has come. The former daytime football programme on Sky Sports once ran a segment making a tongue-in-cheek dig at women’s football. Host Tim Lovejoy introduced the segment as “comedy”, seeing co-presenter Helen Chamberlain react in a despairing manner. Lovejoy joked that a World Cup qualifier on Sky Sports between England and France was more boring than watching paint dry. The segment then showed a small box of the highlights from the game in the bottom corner, while the majority of the screen displayed a man painting a wall blue. The highlights that lasted almost a minute continued in the bottom corner of the screen while viewers were left with a drying blue wall of paint to watch instead if they found it more entertaining. But now, over two decades on, England are European champions again after beating Spain on penalties to win Euro 2025, three years on from their triumph over Germany at Wembley. According to BBC figures, a peak audience of 11.6million tuned in to watch the Lionesses reign supreme again, after 10.6m had watched the late semi-final victory against Italy days before. The rise of women’s football has been astonishing, largely thanks to the Lionesses' success in recent years drawing so many extra eyes onto the game. England’s journey to the title has been anything but boring for fans, with the Lionesses incredibly leading for just four minutes and 52 seconds across their three knockout games at the tournament. And fans had to suffer again as the Lionesses held off the world champions to send the game to penalties. Hannah Hampton was the hero between the sticks, saving two penalties, before Chloe Kelly stepped up to again be England’s go-to girl on the big stage. Lovejoy previously told talkSPORT that the programme was urged to push boundaries when he was asked about the infamous ‘Soccerette’ section, where an attractive woman would be interviewed while wearing a football shirt and would do a catwalk in front of the Fans of the Week. He said: "Don’t bring that up, I cringe about that. "But it was a different time and we were told to push the boundaries. We were just doing different stuff and people had a laugh and a joke with it." The ‘Soccerette’ segment was cancelled in 2015 after being judged as politically incorrect, with the show later cancelled in 2023 to make way for more social media-led viewing.