Women Sports Stars Should See More Plaudits
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I always wonder why it’s such a given that little boys are ‘born’ supporters of a particular football club – namely the one their Da follows. In my house my youngest brother is a Spurs fan by virtue of the fact my Dad at some point put him in a shirt and told him he was. It’s like that for most people I think regardless of whether it’s League of Ireland or any other football they follow. It’s not as clear cut for girls.
My earliest memory of football was being paraded around on me Da’s shoulders as half the country lined up in O’Connell Street to welcome the lads come back from Italia ’90. Sure all I was excited about was the fact Packie Bonner had (according to the gospel of Dad) given me an aul wink so I was dead chuffed telling my teacher in school how I was going to be his girlfriend – proof that kids will actually believe anything you tell them.
At home it was always soccer, soccer, soccer – none of that ‘bog-ball’ crap, because that’s the way my Da was. But football was always sort of ‘for the lads’. It wasn’t until I went on Soccer AM (as a Sunderland fan) that the penny dropped for them ‘Oh look there’s Claire on the TV...on a football show....and she support’s Sunderland??’
*Tumbleweed*
To be honest I’ll watch and go to any football game. I ended up following Sunderland the same way I ended up following Shamrock Rovers, not because they were teams ‘passed down’ the family tree to me but because they were who my friends followed, interestingly, my male friends.
As a girl who is into football purely for entertainment purposes, there is always this feeling that a small number of male supporters are well, a little suspicious of you. That maybe you need to try and convince people a little bit more that you are a fan through and through. Football is all about opinions and in one sense that’s what makes it so interesting and accessible to everyone because, well, everyone has an opinion that’s neither right nor wrong! But if you’re a girl in a crowd who calls a free wrong or doesn’t catch sight of a foul then nine times out of ten someone will pipe up ‘And what would you know?!’ The fact that the issue most of the guys who have a problem with women’s alleged lack of understanding of the offside rule (which is hardly astrophysics) says a lot more about their ‘intelligence’ if that’s the pinnacle of difficult things they think there is to learn to understand.
The very obvious difference between sexes when it comes to football is probably that most guys actually play football and it’s the ‘boyhood dream’ to want to be a footballer. But on the other hand I don’t know (personally) of a single woman whose life-long dream has been to play football at a professional level. In fact I don’t even know any of my group of girlfriends who even plays football – myself included! I think football is still very much a man’s world. But I also think women themselves almost help to make it that way. Women who go to watch games, like myself, don’t generally go with the desire to be a footballer. That’s a big difference. A huge number of men do which must add hugely to their feeling of belonging to the game, and of the game belonging to them.
But every so often a rare gem like Katie Taylor will emerge and despite having made phenomenal achievements in her career, she will still get less air time. Because she’s a woman. Tomorrow Katie will be Grand Marshall at the Paddy’s Day Parade in town – deservedly so – yet (until today) I had still heard feck all about it.
I mean, isn’t it astonishing how Irish women don’t seem to look up to this girl? In my own (less sporty) career I’ve had many young girls mail me (what I feel are) ridiculous statements like that I am an ‘inspiration’ to them or that I am ‘flying the flag for Ireland’. I’m not knocking them personally but fuck me, I posed on Page 3, and if that’s ‘flying the flag’ then let’s all hope the country doesn’t go looking for a mascot anytime soon. What about the 600 points I swotted my ass off for, my degree, my masters or that I’ll be doing my PhD in a facility that is ranked in the top three in the whole world? I’m sure that if you did a poll a lot more women in this country would rather be Rosanna Davison than Katie Taylor (and that’s in no way meant to offend Rosanna). But why? It boggles the mind.
The Irish Women’s International Team had their draw for the Euro 2013 qualifiers on Monday. Besides the FAI website, I found one or two few scabby reports of it online (without about as much enthusiasm as an obituary). Now I haven’t looked at a paper but I’d be pretty confident and bet more money than I would on a guaranteed winner at Cheltenham, that there was probably little or no mention of it. And for the record, they drew France, Scotland and Wales.
A lot of League of Ireland fans complain the league gets minimum column inches in the papers – at least it exists! A quick look at a few of the clubs websites will tell you if they have women’s teams they that website in the parallel universe where women play football. I mean, even ‘schoolboys’ football gets a mention.
The sad thing is the women who have gone out and made, by all standards some ridiculously accomplished careers for themselves are still not getting the recognition they deserve. Many have not only excelled at football but also at other sports too. Emma Byrne must own a miniature house attached to her own in which to store her gazillion caps for her country. She also won the UEFA champions League with Arsenal in 2007, as did Ciara Grant. Niamh Fahy, like Katie, is another multi talented sportswoman. She plays at Arsenal but also represented Galway in the women’s 2005 All-Ireland final at Croke Park (not really my thing but give credit where credit’s due!). Ciara McCormack plays as a full time professional in the top tier of the Norwegian women’s league with Kolboten FC and, of course, there is Taylor – professional female footballer with five European and three world titles in boxing to add to her glittering CV.
Is there such a thing as a modern Irish male equivalent to this talent and if there was don’t you think we’d have heard an awful lot about him by now? Football may still be a man’s world but I think that, at the very least, we should know who these women are.
My earliest memory of football was being paraded around on me Da’s shoulders as half the country lined up in O’Connell Street to welcome the lads come back from Italia ’90. Sure all I was excited about was the fact Packie Bonner had (according to the gospel of Dad) given me an aul wink so I was dead chuffed telling my teacher in school how I was going to be his girlfriend – proof that kids will actually believe anything you tell them.
At home it was always soccer, soccer, soccer – none of that ‘bog-ball’ crap, because that’s the way my Da was. But football was always sort of ‘for the lads’. It wasn’t until I went on Soccer AM (as a Sunderland fan) that the penny dropped for them ‘Oh look there’s Claire on the TV...on a football show....and she support’s Sunderland??’
*Tumbleweed*
To be honest I’ll watch and go to any football game. I ended up following Sunderland the same way I ended up following Shamrock Rovers, not because they were teams ‘passed down’ the family tree to me but because they were who my friends followed, interestingly, my male friends.
As a girl who is into football purely for entertainment purposes, there is always this feeling that a small number of male supporters are well, a little suspicious of you. That maybe you need to try and convince people a little bit more that you are a fan through and through. Football is all about opinions and in one sense that’s what makes it so interesting and accessible to everyone because, well, everyone has an opinion that’s neither right nor wrong! But if you’re a girl in a crowd who calls a free wrong or doesn’t catch sight of a foul then nine times out of ten someone will pipe up ‘And what would you know?!’ The fact that the issue most of the guys who have a problem with women’s alleged lack of understanding of the offside rule (which is hardly astrophysics) says a lot more about their ‘intelligence’ if that’s the pinnacle of difficult things they think there is to learn to understand.
The very obvious difference between sexes when it comes to football is probably that most guys actually play football and it’s the ‘boyhood dream’ to want to be a footballer. But on the other hand I don’t know (personally) of a single woman whose life-long dream has been to play football at a professional level. In fact I don’t even know any of my group of girlfriends who even plays football – myself included! I think football is still very much a man’s world. But I also think women themselves almost help to make it that way. Women who go to watch games, like myself, don’t generally go with the desire to be a footballer. That’s a big difference. A huge number of men do which must add hugely to their feeling of belonging to the game, and of the game belonging to them.
But every so often a rare gem like Katie Taylor will emerge and despite having made phenomenal achievements in her career, she will still get less air time. Because she’s a woman. Tomorrow Katie will be Grand Marshall at the Paddy’s Day Parade in town – deservedly so – yet (until today) I had still heard feck all about it.
I mean, isn’t it astonishing how Irish women don’t seem to look up to this girl? In my own (less sporty) career I’ve had many young girls mail me (what I feel are) ridiculous statements like that I am an ‘inspiration’ to them or that I am ‘flying the flag for Ireland’. I’m not knocking them personally but fuck me, I posed on Page 3, and if that’s ‘flying the flag’ then let’s all hope the country doesn’t go looking for a mascot anytime soon. What about the 600 points I swotted my ass off for, my degree, my masters or that I’ll be doing my PhD in a facility that is ranked in the top three in the whole world? I’m sure that if you did a poll a lot more women in this country would rather be Rosanna Davison than Katie Taylor (and that’s in no way meant to offend Rosanna). But why? It boggles the mind.
The Irish Women’s International Team had their draw for the Euro 2013 qualifiers on Monday. Besides the FAI website, I found one or two few scabby reports of it online (without about as much enthusiasm as an obituary). Now I haven’t looked at a paper but I’d be pretty confident and bet more money than I would on a guaranteed winner at Cheltenham, that there was probably little or no mention of it. And for the record, they drew France, Scotland and Wales.
A lot of League of Ireland fans complain the league gets minimum column inches in the papers – at least it exists! A quick look at a few of the clubs websites will tell you if they have women’s teams they that website in the parallel universe where women play football. I mean, even ‘schoolboys’ football gets a mention.
The sad thing is the women who have gone out and made, by all standards some ridiculously accomplished careers for themselves are still not getting the recognition they deserve. Many have not only excelled at football but also at other sports too. Emma Byrne must own a miniature house attached to her own in which to store her gazillion caps for her country. She also won the UEFA champions League with Arsenal in 2007, as did Ciara Grant. Niamh Fahy, like Katie, is another multi talented sportswoman. She plays at Arsenal but also represented Galway in the women’s 2005 All-Ireland final at Croke Park (not really my thing but give credit where credit’s due!). Ciara McCormack plays as a full time professional in the top tier of the Norwegian women’s league with Kolboten FC and, of course, there is Taylor – professional female footballer with five European and three world titles in boxing to add to her glittering CV.
Is there such a thing as a modern Irish male equivalent to this talent and if there was don’t you think we’d have heard an awful lot about him by now? Football may still be a man’s world but I think that, at the very least, we should know who these women are.
