Bend It Like Beckham made me feel heard and seen

Growing up, Simran Sandhu just wanted to play football.

She loved having a kick around the garden with her brothers, but her Punjabi dad wasnt keen on her joining a team. He didnt even like her playing FIFA on the PlayStation. Football was a boys sport, he said.

Simran was jealous of her younger brothers, who were allowed to play on teams and who she spent her weekends watching from the sidelines.

"Even when it came to just playing in the garden Id noticed silly things like my dad would be paying more attention to my brother, passing the ball to him more," Simran, now 23, says.

It wasnt until Simran was 14 that her dad let her join a team.

And around that time, she also first watched Bend It Like Beckham - and was surprised by how much Gurinder Chadhas 2002 film reflected her experience.

People would point to Jesminder Bhamra, the films main character, and say, "Thats literally you", Simran says."When I heard the title, I didnt expect it to be so close to my heart. It made me feel heard and seen."

The film focuses on Jesminders passion for football and her Punjabi parents resistance to her playing the sport. Theyre more concerned about her sisters upcoming wedding and Jesminder staying out of trouble.

Jesminder, or Jess, as shes known, has to sneak behind her parents backs as she joins a girls team with her friend, Jules. The film, peppered with witty one-liners and iconic scenes, follows the teens attempts to placate her family while chasing her dream of getting scouted.

A sequel is now on the cards, Chadha said last month.

"Weve been part of changing the game for women, so it felt like this was a good time for me to go back and investigate the characters," she said, suggesting that the new instalment could come out in 2027, which would mark the films 25th anniversary.

BBC News spoke to women about the films legacy.

"I wanted to be Jess," says Maz Ullah, whos watched Bend It Like Beckham dozens of times. "Id never seen a brown girl on TV who represented me so well."

Maz rented the film from Blockbuster in the early 2000s. It was a "mirror" of her life, she says.

When she was young, her dad - himself a huge football fan - took her to a shop and told her she could pick any sport to start. But when she chose football, "he was like, Except for football, you cant play football, you should play tennis," Maz says.

The concept of female footballers was "alien" to her dad, she says. "That conversation and that attitude impacted my confidence."

Maz gave up her dream of playing.

Though some people of Indian heritage told the BBC the film represented their culture well, Northumbria Universitys Dr Aarti Ratna, who researches Asian representation in sport, says the film draws on some stereotypes and many South Asian female footballers do actually have enthusiastic parents.

This was the case for Riya Mannu, who plays for Birmingham City FC.

"My dad didnt question it when I said I wanted to play," the 18-year-old says. But she still faced barriers, including having to join a boys team when she was eight because she couldnt find any girls ones nearby.

Riya says shes watched the film, which starred Keira Knightley and Parminder Nagra, dozens of times. She even saw a stage adaptation and got a photo with Chadha. It was one of the things that inspired her to become a footballer, she says.

Even people who dont follow football say the film has had a huge impact because of its representation of South Asian culture.

"It was a staple in a brown household," says Jasmine Rai, 25, adding it was "the first time I saw a brown girl in a positive light" in a film.

Her friend Natasha Retnasingam, 25, says shes watched the film at least 20 times - "I can recite that movie," Natasha says. "For me, it was less about football and more about the fact you can go after your goals no matter what."

Yasmin Hussain watched the film when she was a teenager. "It was needed," she says. "It was the first time Ive ever seen something like that on TV."

By the time she watched the film, in the early 2000s, Yasmin had already given up on the sport because she couldnt find a team with a female coach nearby. Before that, shed been playing with brothers and his friends on the street, but "it was an environment my parents didnt feel that was appropriate or safe for me."

"I knew that its something that I wont be able to be doing long," Yasmin says. "It was just basically a matter of when it was I had to give it up. I didnt think it would be as soon as the age of 13."

In the 23 years since the film came out, womens football in the UK has changed massively, says Prof Hanya Pielichaty of the University of Lincoln, who researches gender and sport.

"Finally, people are starting to take womens football seriously, injecting it with sponsorship, with cash, with facilities, allowing women to be full-time footballers rather than a full-time lawyer and a footballer on the side," she says. "It didnt seem like it would ever happen."

There have been changes in grassroots football, too, she says. When Bend It Like Beckham came out "we were playing in mens old football kit, we were getting changed in toilets or shabby changing rooms, doing the best that we could, putting in two pounds a week to contribute to the referee," says Prof Pielichaty, who played football for more than 20 years.

While theres been huge progress, "theres still some girls fighting to get teams, theres still lots of parents of female footballers having to pay money to get kits and to be in an academy structure," she says.

Some of the women the BBC spoke to kept playing football, like Simran, who played for her university team.

About two decades after she stopped playing, Yasmin finally returned to football in 2017 by training as a coach. She hopes to give girls from South Asian communities the opportunities she didnt have when she was younger.

"Girls dont see it as a boys sport anymore," she says.

The films fans say theyre excited for the sequel, which they hope will see Jess and Jules return to screens while marking the Lionesses success, and hope will inspire a new generation of footballers.

Some fans wonder if a sequel could live up to the original, though.

"Another Bend It Like Beckham would be amazing," Riya says," but would it be as good as the first one?"