ATTENTION ALL MEN! This is an important news bulletin: you do not own the rights to football. Guess what? There are even some women out there who know more about football than you do, and I’m willing to wager that Sian Massey is one of them.
"What's that strange round object? My fragile ladybrain can't comprehend it.."
Sadly, the sort of snide sexist drivel spouted by Richard Keys and Andy Gray at the weekend is typical of many (not all, obviously) football-loving men, who scoff at the thought of women on a football pitch or cheering on their team down the pub.
And of course, inevitably Facebook, Twitter and various blogs are currently crammed with blokes thinking that they are the very epitome of wit by making patronising jokes about women’s knowledge of football. Like Keys and Gray, they’d probably bottle it at the thought of telling those jokes to a woman’s face. What if a woman had made an equally condescending comment about men being in the kitchen, the supposed traditional ‘place’ for a woman? Where does that leave the likes of Gordon Ramsay, Jamie Oliver, Michel Roux and Heston Blumenthal?
I am a woman, and I am a football fan. I know more about football than most of my male friends, it’s me that badgers THEM to go to matches, and I could probably run rings around them on the pitch, too. I played at U-12 and U-14 level over a decade ago, and I would have continued to play if the team I was a member of had had provisions for U-16 and ladies’ teams. Unfortunately my playing career ended there, but my love of football didn’t. Oh, and yes, I know what the offside rule is. My miniscule brain occasionally makes room amidst all the recipes and thoughts of flowers and fluffy kittens to soak up such information.
I’ve been to some of the biggest stadiums in Europe, of my own volition – Old Trafford, the San Siro, the Nou Camp. I disappointed my Bohs-supporting Dad when I made Shelbourne my team as a 12-year-old, and I used to follow them up and down the country to matches, before work and studying got in the way of travelling. I might not be as big a football fan as I used to – music eventually replaced sport as the primary pleasure in my life. But I still enjoy watching a match as much as the next PERSON. Gender irrelevant.
But Keys and Gray shouldn’t be fired or fined – they should be taken out onto a pitch and publicly humiliated by the UK’s best women footballers, who undoubtedly have more metaphorical balls than either of them.
Anthea McTeirnan
Croí na Duibhlinn
Aoife Barry
Aoife McLysaght
Arlene Hunt
Attracta McCarthy-McKenna
clairehennessy
Ann Cronin
Amanda Brown
Eleanor Fitzsimons
Edel Coffey
Anna Carey
Lauren Murphy
Jennie Ridyard
Jude Leavy
Hazel Katherine Larkin
Léan Ní Chuilleanáin
Leigh
Lisa McInerney
Laura Slattery
Maman Poulet
Megan McGurk
Clare Kleinedler
Molly
Rosita Boland
Catherine Crichton
Sinéad Gleeson
sarahefranklin
siobhandowling
Susan Daly
theantiroom
Nuala Ní Chonchúir
And now, dear friends, we turn to Stewart Lee for relevant commentary.
To be honest it’s a stupid rule anyway, soccer would be a better game without it, there are too few scores in most games.
This male/female thing with soccer/driving whatever is ridiculous. Many of the soccer couch potatoes have never even played the game. We can all be armchair experts watching sport but introduce a gender divide into a passive activity is nonsensical.
And of course the other side of this coin is that if you’re a man who’s not interested in football you’re not, to creatures like Richard ‘n’ Andy anyway, a real man. So there’s a good chance that you’ll get the crap kicked out of you in school by R ‘n’ A types and do less well when the blokes are handing out top jobs. On the other hand, you have all that time not spent watching football to have fun. (And you’re certainly lucky that you’re not a woman trying to make a career in football – or anywhere else where boy-talk is a requirement for entry.)
What’s most upsetting about this whole discussion is the inclination of those-who-should-know-better to use gender and gender conformity to score points.
“She’s more of a man than they’ll ever be.” What? She’s a woman. They’re men. Neither are better than the other. And being “more of a man” is not a universal good. Being “womanly” is not a bad thing. But neither of those things have anything to do with football.
So — does Antiroom have a fantasy football league?
Very well said! It is, quite frankly, beyond belief. I have expressed my own views on my blog – I think they speak for themselves!
I was hoping this wouldn’t be brought up. I really hope Liverpool knows to bring their A game tomorrow. I’ve had enough of teams not playing a whole game lately. I might not be able to stand being at work while this is going on. Does anyone know if Stevie is back tomorrow.
Why the reference to Shelbourne, Lauren? You were writing about soccer. On a personal level, I was about eighteen when I stopped playing. Phoenix Park, freezing cold, I was defending a corner when this rough looking bloke who fancied himself as being the next Alan Shearer invaded my personal space, before telling me to f/off. Time to be a man, I looked at him and he looked at me, high-noon made real. Anyway, I continued to look at him and he felt compelled to continue sharing that caveman look of his with me. ‘So, that’s the way you want to play it?’ I can still remember thinking, before retreating to the sanctuary of the half-way line, next stop The Slipper.