April 30, 2024 • 50 mins
This episode was previously released on April 14, 2020
Jacqui talks about her lifelong obsession with football, how she changed careers at 27 to re-train as a journalist and how lonely and isolated she felt after the hideous build up to her first appearance on BBC’s Match of The Day.
Being the first female commentator on Match of the Day is how Jacqui is best known to many. She went on to present the show in 2015, and in 2016 was awarded an MBE for her services to broadcasting and diversity. Jacqui presented the BBC’s flagship sports news show Sportsweek, hosted Euros and World Cups for BBC and ITV and now hosts football and darts for ITV. She recently became the first female host of Sky Sports Sunday Supplement show.
It’s no wonder that in 2015 Jacqui was named as the 8th most influential woman in sport by the Independent.
Thank you to Sport England who support The Game Changers Podcast with a National Lottery award.
Find out more about The Game Changers podcast here: https://www.fearlesswomen.co.uk/thegamechangers
Hosted by Sue Anstiss
Produced by Sam Walker, What Goes On Media
A Fearless Women production
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Hello and welcome to the Game Changers podcast.
I'm Sue Anstis, a foundingtrustee of the Women's Sport
Trust and CEO of Promote, one ofthe UK's leading sports
communications agencies.
I'm thrilled to say that thisseries of the Game Changers is
supported by Barclays and willfocus on fearless women in
(00:29):
football, reinforcing Barclays'huge commitment to the beautiful
game.
Last year, barclays announcedthe biggest ever sponsorship of
women's sport in the UK, as theBarclays FA Women's Super League
became Europe's first fullyprofessional women's football
league.
A huge amount of Barclaysinvestment also went into
(00:52):
establishing the Girls FootballSchool Partnerships with the aim
of ensuring that all girls inEngland have equal access to
football in schools.
My guest today is passionateabout ensuring all women have
equal access to working insports media.
Sports presenter Jackie Oatleywas awarded an MBE in 2016 for
(01:14):
her services to broadcasting anddiversity in sport.
Jackie's best known by many asthe first female commentator to
appear on BBC's Match of the Day, which she went on to present
in 2015.
A former director of the Womenin Football Network, jackie
anchored the 2013 Euros and theWomen's World Cup in 2015 for
(01:38):
the BBC and then the Men's 2016Euros and the 2018 World Cup for
ITV Sport.
She was presenter of BBC'sflagship sports news show,
sportsweek on BBC 5 Live and nowhosts football and darts for
ITV and was recently appointedas the first female host of Sky
(01:58):
Sports' hugely popular show,sunday Supplement.
It's no wonder that in 2015,jackie was named as the eighth
most influential woman in sportby the Independent.
With such an incredibly busyschedule, I was so pleased that
Jackie made the time to meetwith me.
We met at her gorgeous home inSurrey and I began the interview
(02:19):
by asking her where her love offootball began.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So I'm a little bit odd in many ways, but
particularly in this regard,because it wasn't the
traditional dad taking you tofootball and being mad on one
club, or brother kicking ballsaround in the garden, and then
you got into it that way.
I was at an all-girls schoolfor 10 years and in those days
girls didn't really likefootball or nobody I knew did
and so nobody at school evertalked about football.
(02:45):
Mum and dad didn't, my brotherno interest in football
whatsoever, and I was alwaysobsessed with sport right from
the word go.
My dad liked golf and snookerand I used to watch everything
on tv, all sorts of sports, um,wimbledon, wall-to-wall coverage
and olympics.
I'd watch everything.
(03:05):
So that was an innate passion.
But I had no introduction tofootball at all until I was
lying on the sofa one day, Ithink maybe I was ill and didn't
want to get up and change thetv channel and just watch this
game, and that was it.
I can't even tell you what gameit was.
There weren't many games on tvback then, it was one a week.
I think some switch flicked inmy head and I just thought this
(03:29):
is the sport for me.
I can still remember.
I could picture the scene in mylounge when I just thought this
is the sport for me and it wasjust absolutely right for me and
that was it.
I suddenly overnight became thebiggest weirdo and nobody
understood why or where it hadcome from.
And my good friends at schoolassumed it was because I was
trying to get in with the boysNot that we had any at our
(03:50):
school, you understand, but theythought that must be it.
But it wasn't, and I just wentand ripped all my Bross posters
down off my bedroom wall andunder my dressing table glass
and replaced them with nobody inparticular at first.
I just cut any pictures outfrom match shoot and 90 minutes
magazine and just filled mybedroom with football.
And to this day I don't reallyunderstand it.
(04:13):
It just happened?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
how old were you then at that point?
You think, good question.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I'm still not entirely sure.
I think it was probably about13, 14 and from that day onwards
I would run to the front doorwhen the dog would bark, when
the express and star newspaperwould arrive, and previously I'd
open to page three to the tvguide and circle what I wanted
to watch that night.
And one day I just wentstraight to the back page and
I've got a local football team.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I'll start supporting them and that was it really was
, when your friends were lookingat heat magazine or smash hits
or whatever it was.
Then, my guy, you were lookingat football magazines and yeah,
that was it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
They were all reading girly magazines.
I used to have the jackieannual going back a bit um, and
that was it.
I used to.
I think was it shoot or match.
One of them was out on atuesday and a wednesday and I
knew the, the delivery date, thepublication date and I'd walk
sort of 15 minutes into theStars new shops in Codsall and
would buy those magazines onwhatever date they came out, and
(05:12):
I wouldn't just flick throughthem like you might do a girly
magazine.
I would read every single wordand absorb it.
And to the back of match andshoot, they would have all the
starting 11s and substitutes andwho'd come on and who'd gone
off of every team throughout theleague.
And I used to scour I don'tknow why, it sounds really odd I
used to scour all down thelower leagues and absorb what
(05:34):
was happening in.
It was the third and fourthdivision at that time, league
one and two now, and I wouldpick out play if there was a
feature on them.
I was thinking, oh god, maybewolf should sign them one day
and, you know, maybe I shouldwrite to the club and tell them
or something.
Mark Rankin of Doncaster looksgood.
And then they signed him.
I didn't write to the club, itwas a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Do you remember going to your first live match, your
first game?
How did that feel?
Did that live up to theexpectations you'd had in terms
of all?
You'd read and studied about it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well it's funny because I went to the old
Molyneux stadium, which only hadtwo sides open, and one of the
stands that was open was milesaway from the pitch because the
club had run out of money beforethey could finish the stadium
redevelopment and two standswere condemned.
So it was a weirdnon-atmosphere.
But I used to stand on thesouth bank and got a season
ticket for 75 pounds and I usedto go up where all the action
(06:22):
was and there weren't reallymany girls or women around there
and I used to get asked well,how come you're not down the
front with the girls?
And I just couldn't think ofanything worse than being away
from the atmosphere.
And that was what it was about.
It was.
I was just absorbed by thepassion, the atmosphere, the
tactics or lack of them,everything to do with the game,
(06:44):
the sights, sights, the smells,the sounds, the travelling away
from home.
When you feel part of a gang,you feel part of a tribe,
because football is so tribaland I was just completely
absorbed by it and utterlyobsessed and I still am to this
day.
And did you play football aswell as?
a girl, we couldn't play atschool.
(07:04):
I went to an all-girls school.
We weren't allowed to play.
When I asked, went to avirtually all-boys school for
sixth form and we weren'tallowed to play there either.
So I set up a lower six againstupper six girls football team.
The boys paid a pound to acharity to watch us and to laugh
at us because none of us hadever kicked a ball before.
And no, I just bought myself aball and just taught myself how
to do keepy-uppies endlessly forhours in the garden and would
(07:27):
bash the ball against the garagedoor and annoy the rest of my
family.
So I taught myself that.
But there were no clubs, therewere no teams and nobody I knew
was remotely interested.
So it was only when I went touniversity at the age of 17, I
went to Leeds Uni and the veryfirst day of Freshers' Week I
made a beeline for the women'sfootball table and said I've
never played in my life.
(07:48):
Can I join?
And yeah, sure, and I had agreat time.
It was socially.
It was absolutely phenomenal,travelling all over the country,
all over Yorkshire, and got onso well with the girls, and just
that's what I'd love to havedone from the age of five, not
17.
But and then I carried onplaying down to London, joined a
(08:11):
local team in the GreaterLondon League, unfortunately had
a very, very serious injurydislocating my kneecap and
ruptured all the ligaments, lostall the cartilage under the
kneecap and was told it was sucha bad injury that I could never
kick a ball again.
Really, and um, so I haven't.
And that's when.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
That's when I ended up changing career as a result
of that, You're not a straightroute into media and journalism.
Was that the piece that causedyou to change your career
direction?
Your injury?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I'd often thought about it.
It was growing up.
There was no, no inspiration interms of working in football
media or sports media yes, theodd female presenter and Helen
Rollison of course but it neverfelt like something I could
aspire to do personally, whetherthat was a confidence issue or
what.
I just didn't see openings.
(08:54):
I didn't see women going intojournalism.
I never really thought about acareer in it.
So what was the thing that madeyou shift?
The short version is that I dida German degree, travelled
around the world for a yearafter that, came back at the age
of 22 and thought, oh, Ithought I'd know what I wanted
to do by now and I didn't.
(09:14):
And so I did some temping inthe black country, in Dudley,
and I just hadn't thought untilthen that I could make a career
of sports journalism.
Because, despite having thisobsession growing up and at
school, where they all thought Iwas a little bit odd, probably,
I'm guessing nobody suggestedhave you thought about
broadcasting or writing, becausein those days you didn't really
(09:35):
see female sports writers.
So it was only after a fewyears in another job that I
started to get itchy feet and Iknew that wasn't for me, that
job, the career just wasn'tfulfilling.
So really I thought, god, I'dlove to start again.
How do I do it?
I'm just, and I readbiographies of people who had
got into this business and a lotof them had journalism
(09:59):
qualifications or workexperience or degrees in that
field and I didn't have any ofthat.
But I bought a book about howto become a journalist and it
started off by saying it's veryhandy if you have a language
degree and I thought, ah, okay,maybe I could, maybe I can do
this.
And then I decided to do take acouple of days off work and do
a couple of days work experienceat haters sports news agency.
(10:21):
I went to a couple of pressconferences and I was like, oh
my goodness, this is for me.
And I put my hand up and andasked Glenn Hoddle a question,
and and the answer made it intothe daily mail the next day and
I thought, oh, this is a buzz,I'd like to ask football people
questions.
This is great.
And so I gave up my job one daybecause I thought, well, I
can't get the work experience Ineed while being in another job,
(10:44):
and then of course I wouldn'thave an income living in London.
So I handed the notice on myflat and I rang around a few
friends and said look, this isthe decision I've decided to
make.
I really want to make a go ofchanging career, but I need to
find a way in somehow can I comeand stay on your floor for a
week or stay on your sofa bed?
(11:04):
And so I just took a duvet anda carrier bag with pillow and a
little backpack around London towhoever was kind enough to let
me stay on their floor, becauseeveryone was paying rent at that
time, you see, and um, and Ijust did as much work experience
unpaid as I could, and I bythat point I had done six months
of hospital radio at the end ofmy working day and I would do
(11:28):
an evening of print journalismcourse and a radio production
course.
So I was doing all this workexperience as much as I could
and finding out as much as Icould about the industry in my
spare time.
But eventually I had to give upeverything to be able to throw
everything at it.
And so that's what I did.
And I and I thought, well,where do I go from here?
I'm doing all this unpaid workexperience, but I need to.
(11:52):
I need to get a job, and youcan't really just get a job
without any kind ofqualification, unless you're
extremely lucky.
So I did that for a year inSheffield, moved up there lock
stock was a postgrad in injournalism or sports journalism
in broadcast journalism, so thatwas new.
So it's half tv, half radio.
But I had zero interest in tvand um, while I was there I
(12:13):
wrote to all the local bbcstations in the area and bbc
leads tv invited me in for twodays uh, work experience.
And while I was there went onthe leads united financial story
and helped the guy who wasdoing it because he wasn't into
football and they had a lot offinancial issues at the time and
collared the sports editor inthe newsroom and he said well,
(12:35):
would you be interested incoming to do a voice test
because we don't have anyone todo the non-league.
And I was like, yeah, too,right, got a long story short.
I did the non-league footballreporting 21 pounds a week and I
did not give a monkeys aboutmoney.
I'd saved not that I had loads,but I'd saved up all my bonuses
from my previous job and yeah.
So I just turned the WestYorkshire non-league football
(12:58):
scene into my first patch and Iabsolutely adored it.
I was still studying at thetime and I was so grateful for
the opportunity.
Every night and evening andnon-working day was dedicated
towards building contacts andgetting stories and I used to
write non-league footballstories for the guy who was
(13:19):
doing radio leads in the morning, because I thought you were
adding value to the station bygiving them non-league news, I
mean, and they weren't doingthat before.
So one thing led to another andI was asked if I wanted to do
shifts on BBC London after I'dgone down there one day and um
and spoken to the sports editor.
And one thing led to another, Iended up moving back down south
and um, five Live invited me in.
(13:42):
They got me to do the weekendbreakfast sport and things
carried on from then and I'dstarted doing commentary for bbc
leads, which I was extremelygrateful for, and carried that
on at five live and euro women's.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Euro 2005 was my first break on that front with
them and were there many womenworking within that bbc, the
sports team, at the time whenyou arrived?
Then?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
so when I started at bbc leeds, there was tanya
arnold, who has been around fora very long time, very, very
experienced, so she was more onthe tv site.
She did a lot of the leedsunited rugby league stories
cricket.
My goodness, it's an amazingpatch, it really is, and it was
a great start for me.
And then when I moved down toBBC London, pete Stevens, the
(14:29):
sports editor, was brilliant atgiving women an opportunity.
He still is to this day.
I often phone him up or see himand suggest somebody to him or
ask him if he's got anybody forsomebody else, because he's just
great at giving peopleopportunities.
And but of course it wasextremely male dominated and
certainly local radio, and Ithink it still is.
Really I'm not too sure why,but I don't see too many women
(14:53):
in the local radio press box oreven local newspapers.
So nationally broadcast wise,yes, there are a lot more women
now on TV and on the radio,which is absolutely brilliant.
But I do worry a little bitabout the supply line, because
really that's where you need toget your experience, where
there's less pressure in aregional print media and
(15:18):
broadcast environment and youcan learn from people and kick
on.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And when you started out at BBC, did people talk
about the fact that thereweren't enough women?
Was that something that waspeople making a conscious effort
to change that at the time?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
not.
Initially I was conscious thatin local radio there really
weren't many women certainly notdoing commentary.
There was one at the time who'sno longer doing it,
unfortunately, but in those daysyou would get into local radio.
You do sports bulletins forlocal station.
I was lucky on that patchbecause you would be sitting in
a box all day doing radio Leeds,york, sheffield and Humberside
(15:55):
sports bulletins and rewritingquickly and on air.
It's quick turnaround.
So I learned very quickly, um,but you tend to do that.
And then you do non-league orlocal football reporting.
There tended to be a bit of aglass ceiling that women didn't
tend to do commentary in thosedays.
But I said to my sports editorat the time, derm Tanner, that I
was keen to do it and ask foradvice.
(16:16):
And one day a game was calledoff that Radio Leeds were going
to do and they knew that I waskeen to do commentary.
So the reporting match I wasgoing to do Wakefield and Emily
against Worksop Town andsuddenly became the commentary
game and I was like, oh mygoodness, I got up at three
o'clock in the morning to do thebreakfast show that day and uh,
(16:38):
and had to try and do some prepfor the commentary and it was
quite funny because in thosedays we didn't really have much
information on the internet,especially non-league football.
There really wasn't much.
But uh, I did my best.
It must have been absolutelyterrible, honestly, the player
identification was so hard.
But they all six foot was short, dark hair, miles away.
You can even see the numbers.
You're in the corner low downin the commentary box.
(17:00):
But hey, I got through it and,um, yeah, so I thought, even
though there weren't many womenaround at that time, personally
I didn't see it as a barrierbecause I think maybe having a
bit of life experience helped mewith that.
I'd been a manager in aprevious industry in
intellectual property, I'dmanaged staff.
So I had that bit of maturityand a bit of self-confidence as
(17:22):
a human really, and I was quitegood with people and my, my
football knowledge I was veryconfident with because I was
that weirdo obsessive type.
So I didn't worry about thatand, yeah, I just thought you
know what?
I wasn't aiming high.
I was really aiming to work forFive Live one day.
That was the only ambition andI did have it in my head that
I'd like to try and do it beforeI was 30.
(17:42):
Just be on air once on fivelive before I was 30 and I
managed it at the age of 29 Ithink, and that was really it,
because I used to listen to fivelive all day, all evening, in
the car at home in my flat andtheir football coverage I just
thought was outstanding and Iidolized the people who were on
there and they were my kind ofpop stars really in those days,
(18:04):
because they were the people Ireally looked up to.
So to work for them was anabsolute privilege.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And did you have any issues in terms of being a woman
in press boxes, people notbeing happy to answer your
questions, interviews andplayers or managers?
Was that ever an issue for you,or do you think your vast
knowledge kind of put you in astronger position than some?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, it's funny because, going back to the
non-league days, my very firstreporting match was Bradford
Park Avenue against AshtonUnited in the Unibon Premier
League and I think it was themost terrifying experience of my
life, because they played atthe Horsefall Stadium, which had
one of those awful runningtracks around the outside and
they had one of those horribleenclosed press boxes which, if
you're doing print journalism,maybe that's okay because you're
(18:49):
a bit warmer, but for broadcastit was shocking because I just
remember these guys I don'tthink anybody was under the age
of 60 there and I think they'vebeen going a very long time and
they looked at this blonde thingwith a clipboard and a massive
mobile phone, thinking what isshe doing and what would she
know, and of course, it all feltcompletely silent when they
threw to me and I was soself-conscious.
(19:11):
It was a horrible feeling.
And I remember interviewingplayers at Frickley Athletic and
you know, standing by the thedressing rooms and asking them
for team news, and they lookedat me like I was a little bit
mad, like why do you care aboutthe team news and why do you
care about formations?
Because I just think theydidn't really have.
Maybe journalists didn't taketoo much notice, but certainly
(19:32):
not female ones, um, but I wasreally bang into it.
I wanted to know the formationand how they were going to play
and yeah, and I built my patchand worked my way up and and I
didn't have.
I wasn't self-conscious in thatregard because I felt I knew
what I was talking about.
I didn't have issues oh gosh,someone's going to find me out
that really wasn't a problemjust because I knew how hard I
(19:53):
worked and and how much researchI did.
So that was always fine.
But, yeah, I've only had a afew instances with managers
where I thought you think I'veno idea what I'm talking about,
don't you, because I'm a lassnot too many really in all these
years.
But there there was one managerI remember who, um, when I
(20:14):
interviewed him after a PremierLeague game actually.
But I could tell he was a bitof a dinosaur even though he
wasn't that old, but I couldjust tell.
And he was looking through meand I was asking perfectly fair
questions and I just knew hethought what's the point?
And then I remember well, I'mjust going to, I'm just going to
remark on a couple of histactical changes, and blah, blah
, blah, and he looked at mesuddenly, looked at me in the
(20:36):
eye, and he went you know, youfootball, don't you?
And I just thought, oh dear, ohdear, this is pathetic.
Really it was quite pathetic,but that was obviously his
preconception and I guess we allgrow up with preconceptions.
And you know, I've certainlywalked into Dixon's and Maplin's
before and realised that I'vesubconsciously gone for the male
(20:58):
shop steward rather than thelady because I was asking a
technical question.
I remember having a word withmyself afterwards thinking what
are doing?
You've, you've had this foryears in football.
But then when you think aboutit, it's kind of natural to a
lot of people to do that and ofcourse we still have that a
little bit today in terms ofwhat would she know?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
but I think people do realize that there are plenty
of us now who have grown up, youknow, madly passionate about
our sport and and having livedit and breathed it, and I think
it's a lot more accepted now,yeah, and I think you know along
, the likes of Gabby Logan andSue Barker and Ellie Oldroyd I
hear lots of talk about, andClaire Boring too, you'll
(21:38):
recognize almost as breakingthat glass ceiling for women's
sports presenters.
So do you feel theopportunities for women now
coming in are very differentfrom where it was 15 years ago?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
so women coming into sports presenting very much so,
absolutely, and it's thanks toall those wonderful women who
you mentioned then, who havebroken down those barriers.
Um, they probably wouldn't saythey have but or meant to, but
they've just got on with doingtheir job and doing it
fantastically well, whichnaturally then means that when
the next person comes in there'snot so much of a mistrust which
(22:10):
certainly I experienced withcommentary was the biggest
barrier was the mistrust.
What on earth would she know?
I bet she doesn't know aboutour team, but she couldn't have
that passion.
I've actually heard thesethings, which are hilarious, but
, um, yeah, I think it's sodifferent now, and it's so
different to the point thatpeople are actively looking for
good women to recruit.
That's the difference, becausethere is this drive now for
(22:34):
diversity, and a lot of peoplethink of the the d word as being
a pejorative term, but actuallyI think of it as being more
representative of the audience,and I remember a friend of mine
who's not a sport fan at all hassaid that one of the things
she's noticed with sort ofseeing me presenting is she
thinks that having a femalepresenter actually doesn't
(22:58):
exclude her from the show andfrom the subject matter, which I
hadn't really thought of beforeshe felt that, oh, actually the
show is for me.
If she's talking about it, thenmaybe, maybe it's not just an
old boys club that she'spreviously seen sport as being.
I think all white male panelsthese days are not really the
done thing, and on occasionsit's fine if it's a very small
(23:22):
panel about a certain subject.
But bosses now are realizingit's not good enough.
You don't just get any oldwoman, any old black person, any
old asian person, no way.
That's when you've got problems.
If you can't be bothered tofind the best people, then
you've got problems because thenit breeds resentment amongst
their peers and amongst theaudience and you really does
nobody any favors.
If you do diversity badly.
(23:43):
You have to say, okay, we'regoing to be diverse for the
right reasons, because you wantto represent our audience and we
, we must find the best people.
And if they're not immediatelyin front of us, well, do some
research, pick up the phone.
Who have you met?
Who's really really good attheir job but maybe hasn't
appeared on our radar, maybethey haven't pushed themselves
forward yet and maybe we need togo and get them and encourage
(24:05):
them, because we have to changethe culture whereby the best
talent and the best diversetalent comes to the fore because
the culture is there wherebythey are welcomed absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You clearly made news 2007 when you were the first
woman to commentate on match.
The day seems like a long timeago now, doesn't it?
Um, can you give us a littlebit of that backstory?
I guess it didn't just kind ofhappen, or maybe it did just
happen, but how did that comeabout?
Speaker 2 (24:30):
well, it came about because I was commentating
regularly in Premier Leaguefootball for five live and
people who did that tended to beinvited to do a game for match
of the day, and that's preciselywhat happened.
So when I was asked to do it,yes, I was thinking, fantastic,
but for goodness sake, it wasone game and it was because I
was regularly commentating onfive live and I didn't think too
(24:52):
much beyond that.
There was part of me that hadsort of a little bit in the back
of my mind thinking will thisget noticed?
Will it become, become a story?
And I just thought I reallyhope not, because I'd done
everything previously todiscourage any kind of attention
.
For that reason, I was just ajournalist and I wanted to tell
(25:14):
the story.
I did not want to become partof the story and so I just
wanted to seamlessly slot in.
So therefore I didn't tellanyone and I just hoped it
wouldn't find its way into thenational media there was no
twitter in those days, butunfortunately that's very naive.
And of course it made its wayinto the daily mail on the
Tuesday before the Saturday, andthat's where it all started and
(25:34):
unfortunately there was thishideous build-up in which I was
front page news.
Back page news.
From Motti to Totti was theheadline in one paper.
Is football ready for JackieOatley was the front page of the
Guardian, a massive photographon the front page of the
Telegraph.
It was enormous and I just feltthis overwhelming wave of
(25:55):
pressure and I felt extremelylonely and isolated at that time
because I was single, I wasliving in a flat on my own, I
was just prepping and workingthe whole time.
So I still I still felt I wasfairly new in terms of
commentary.
Yes, I've been doing it a fewyears, but certainly this was
new and I felt very much thefocus.
(26:17):
It wasn't so much on me withradio because again, we didn't
have Twitter, so I didn't haveany social media abuse or
anything particularly.
No one really noticed, nobodyreally seemed to care.
I felt I was doing an okay jobafter initial major
self-conscious nerves and stuffto start with, and I did a
couple of horrendouscommentaries.
Purely because of that I feltthe weight of the world on my
(26:38):
shoulders and then came throughthat.
But TV again was just anothermatter.
So by the time the Saturday came, after I'd had every phone in,
had been debating whether Ishould be allowed to do it.
My radio alarm that I woke upto on the Wednesday or Thursday
morning at seven o'clock hadRachel Burden a good friend of
mine, actually, um, five live,um asking the question should a
(27:01):
female be allowed to commentateon match of the day?
It wasn't her question, ofcourse, it was the subject, and
I just remember feeling in theeye of the storm, thinking oh my
goodness, what is going on, andI had all these phone calls of
support from other commentatorssaying I can't believe this,
this is ridiculous.
I had loads of texts and emailsfrom colleagues I've met in
(27:22):
local radio, national media overthe years asking for interviews
, and I stupidly wrote extensiveemails and texts back
explaining politely why I wasgoing to decline, because I did
not want to be the story.
I did not want to add fuel tothe fire, I just wanted the
attention to go away.
I didn't want to be a celebrity.
On the contrary, I really,really did not want any profile
(27:43):
whatsoever, which is quiteagainst the way a lot of people
are now.
But I just didn't want that.
I just wanted to be as good afootball commentator as I could
and I worked so, so hard at it.
I spent every spare minutedoing prep, which was actually
very bad idea.
I should have been better atswitching off.
I'm still terrible at switchingoff and prep every, every spare
(28:05):
minute.
Now I just juggle youngchildren as well, which is, you
know, another ingredient to themix.
But it came, it went, I survived.
There weren't too many articlessaying how terrible I was,
which was quite nice.
But there was, unfortunately, awhole back page on the Monday
morning on the mail, which wasit was sad because it was
(28:25):
entirely untrue.
Um, I don't know where they'dgot the information from that
I'd had to go back to TV centreand write a script and redub the
entire eight and a half minutes.
It simply wasn't true.
I'd done my commentary.
I got down off the gantry andwent and interviewed the two
managers and then wandered backto my car thinking, okay, this
is weird.
I'm used to my commentary goingout live, but now I've got a
(28:46):
few hours for this awful, awfulthing to happen, which was
actually expecting a boatload ofabuse and what have you.
And it was.
It was really weird.
So to see that on a mondaymorning was just.
It was so disheartening becauseI had no comeback what do you
do in that situation?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
there isn't anything you can really beyond calling
them up for it.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
There's no more.
You can do with hindsight andthis is gosh, gosh.
Nearly 13 years ago I was.
I was so naive then, I didn'tknow how it worked.
I had nobody.
I felt like I had nobody whohad my back, and that's not
criticism of anybody, it's justhow I felt.
I just felt there should havebeen an apology.
I wish I'd phoned them upmyself.
(29:27):
I wish I got the journalistphone number and said why did
you write that?
Who told you that it's simplynot true?
And yeah, but as it was.
I just got my head down.
I did what I always did andjust worked hard, worked even
harder and did the very best jobI could, and.
But it was a very different era.
Then there was no social mediaand, I think, double-edged sword
(29:49):
.
Yes, I would have got aboatload of abuse.
It would have been horrible.
But equally, had I been onTwitter at that time, then
people would have known that Iwas completely immersed in
football, went to matches everyweek.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
They might have known my background, but I had no, no
online footprint then, becauseand I guess, moving on to now,
when you do have an onlinefootprint in Twitter and
obviously fantastic that yourecently appointed as the new
host of the Sky Sports SundaySupplement.
So huge congratulations again,more groundbreaking appointments
and amongst, I guess, all thathuge praise and the positive
messages from fans and mediacolleagues, there are also once
(30:20):
again, but now on Twitter somereally sexist comments, and my
reaction always is it'sgenerally a mix of shock that
these attitudes exist and thenamusement almost at the
stupidity of some of them.
They've usually got nine or tenfollowers.
Are you still surprised to seethose comments at that time?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Amused.
I think I've just got to showyou one that I found yesterday
that I saved just to show myhusband at breakfast because it
made me laugh quite a lot.
I used to religiously watchthis program every week until it
turned into woman's hour, whichis very funny, because we
didn't even talk about women'sfootball and there were no women
on the panel, there wasliterally just me presenting it,
(31:01):
so that that actually made melaugh.
And now, with all thisexperience and it's almost like
a comfort blanket having thatexperience, because it's not so
much easier but it just feels somuch more natural to be able to
do your job and I do feel muchmore accepted now I don't feel
like I'm fighting fires at all.
I really don't.
And when I get comments purelybased on my gender, honestly I
(31:24):
can tell you truthfully it iswater off a duck's back, because
what are you supposed to dowith that?
What does it even mean?
If somebody says I thought theway you asked that question was
terrible, then I might be a bitoh, hang on a minute, I might
watch that back and oh, actuallyhe's got a point and I'll learn
from it.
I genuinely do take any ofthose kind of things on board.
If it was something, if it wassomething critical of my style
(31:46):
or something I'd said.
But I haven't actually had thosecomments, it's purely been
gender-based.
But I have had a couple whichhave actually made me smile,
which have been tweets ofapologies yeah, a couple of
those and and I've actually beenreally grateful to those,
because it takes guts to say doyou know what?
I was one of those people thatslagged you off token
(32:07):
appointment and actually I waswrong, and so I've tweeted them
back saying thank you.
I really appreciate the message.
I think it just shows thatperhaps we're making progress,
in the sense that, yes, it'sfrustrating you got that message
in the first place but actuallymaybe we're moving forwards,
that people are watching us andappreciating us for the job
(32:27):
we're doing rather than thegender that we are and do you
think it's worse in football andfootball commentary than
cricket and rugby and otherwhere you have other women
commenting on males playingsport?
I think it has been.
I'm really good friends withalison mitchell and our careers
have gone hand in hand really,and she is outstanding in what
she does.
And she says she's never hadany of this and you might think
(32:49):
that cricket's male dominated,but respectfully male dominated
dare I suggest that possiblysome of the cricketing audience
is a little bit more grown up onoccasion than some of the
football audience.
She hasn't had any of that.
She really hasn't, and I'm sohappy for her that she hasn't.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
And maybe maybe it's just that she's really good at
what she does, maggie alfonso.
Maggie says the same thing andshe doesn't mind being people
calling her out because she justmade the wrong comment or they
disagree with her but aboutbeing one.
But she hasn't had much of that.
I think people were surprisedto see a woman commentating on
the men's world cup.
But it isn't.
It's not in the way that thefootball, the vitriol that seems
to follow football commentary.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I think Maggie's a bit different because she won
the world cup as a rugby playerand one of the comments when I
started doing match of the daywas well, show us your medals,
you know what have you won.
And of course those sort ofcomments make you laugh because,
well, what's john watson one?
What's any of the othercommentators?
When did they play?
Or you know how many medalshave they got?
(33:49):
So those kind of things.
Honestly, I couldn't give astuff about things like that.
But I think it just has been amatter of time.
Going back to the comment aboutgoing into curries or maplins
or whatever, that subconsciousbias that a lot of people have,
I think it takes a few years forus to really yeah, to really
tread new ground.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Once that ground's been trodden, then other people
follow and it's not such a bigdeal I'm going to move on to
dance because obviously anotherpassion of yours, big part of
your work on tv, why darts?
Would be my first question.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Oh, that's a very simple one, because I was rung
up one day, um by somebodysenior ITV, who, completely out
of the blue, and offered me acontract.
Now, I'd worked with him before, so I knew him, but no, I had
absolutely no idea it was coming.
And the contract involved acertain number of days on
football, a certain number ofdays on darts, and I'd never
worked on darts.
(34:40):
It's on in our house.
We would watch the premierleague.
Um, my husband and I watch allsorts of sports anyway, so you
know.
So I knew what the players wereand what have you, but I didn't
ever think I would be working ondarts.
It just wasn't something Ithought would happen.
So when I was asked to do it,yeah, jumped at it, absolutely
jumped at it, but it was a steeplearning curve because it's a
(35:03):
very, very different sport toothers I've covered.
But I think the principles arethe same and that my role as a
presenter not a commentator, bythe way as a presenter is to ask
questions of those who haveplayed the sport, partly from a
base of knowledge, but partly onbehalf of the audience at home,
who may be avid darts fans andsome of them may be interested
(35:28):
darts spectators who want toknow more.
So I grabbed it with both handsand did as much research as I
could and and really got an ideaof that world, which you can't
know about until you startworking in it, because it's a
very different world.
I have to say I absolutelyadore it.
I just love it.
(35:48):
The ITV team, we are all sointo it and we just love, love
working on it.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It's an absolute privilege and obviously Fallon
Sherratt's changed the, whichbrought me to dance this year
anyway, but do you think thatwill have a huge impact moving
forward in terms of women cominginto the sport and attracting a
new audience?
Speaker 2 (36:03):
well, this has been an absolute revelation, because
there aren't too many sportingfirsts left, are there?
There really aren't too many.
So when you have something likeFallon achieved at the world
darts championship which is opento women, by the way, it's not
a closed shop.
It never has been.
That's not the case.
It's just that they have theirown BDO Women's Darts
(36:25):
Championship and now they haveset up two qualifying events
specifically for women, so itdoes encourage them.
There will be two places, butit's just a case of a woman
breaking that barrier, ofwinning a match at a PDC World
Championship and that was afirst.
And then for her to follow itup by winning again against
(36:46):
Mensul Sulovic, who is one ofthe best players in the world
and, ok, she had a lot of peoplein on her side and people
booing the opponent, and that'sanother debate, but she was so
cool and so calm and, with dartsbeing such a meritocracy, it's
not like football where youcan't have men playing against
women.
Yeah, you can absolutely havewomen playing against men in
(37:09):
darts and there is thatpsychological barrier for the
men that they whatever peoplesay they really don't want to be
on that big stage being booedand being beaten by a woman,
even though ted evans wasincredibly magnanimous and one
of the new breed you know, younglad is a bit different for him,
um, but it was phenomenal andthe impact.
The pdc were astonished, youknow professional dance
(37:33):
corporation and the fact thatshe was on good morning britain
within a few hours she was onour bbc breakfast but all over
the world she was doing everyinterview that she could while
the attention was on her and ondarts and it's resulted in her
being invited to all the worldseries events.
And there are a few issues.
Maybe some players male playersmight be hang on, I've been on
(37:53):
the circuit for years.
I don't get, but it is the factthat they are trying to grow
the game into differentterritories.
And those two victories, andthat first one almost overnight,
changed darts forever.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Still exciting now, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (38:05):
And she'll be in the UK Open in a few days' time, and
so too will Lisa Ashton, whowon a tour card as a
professional for the next coupleof years, which is fantastic.
So it was not just Fallon itwas Fallon that grabbed the
headlines but the likes of LisaMikuru Suzuki, who's the women's
back-to-back champion.
They are breaking new ground.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Exciting stuff and I'm going to move on now.
So 2016,.
You were awarded an MBE forservices to broadcasting and
diversity in sport, and I lovedyour quote at the time that you
said I accepted it on behalf of,of every little girl who's been
told she shouldn't playfootball and every woman who's
been told to stay out of thepress box.
So it seems that having animpact on women in the future is
something that's very importantto you.
Do you think that's always beenthe case, or is that something
(38:44):
that's evolved over time?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
well, it's really interesting because when I came
into sports broadcasting, andparticularly on the football
side of things, it was for thesame reason that any lads would
aspire to go into that industrybecause you're madly passionate
about your sport and you'll haveto work in that world.
So initially I didn't have that.
Oh, I'm going to be a woman ina man's world, because it was my
(39:08):
world.
I didn't feel like I wasentering their world, I was just
me.
But of course it becameabundantly clear that there
weren't many, if any, other,women in the press box, and so I
found myself entering thisworld whereby I was being asked
about being the only woman to dothis, or the first woman to do
that.
And we don't have women aroundhere.
And it was or can I have a?
(39:31):
Can I have another lump ofsugar in that, please love you
know?
Um, so it became clear, butagain I feel that that life
experience I had of havingtraveled around the world, of
having lived in Germany when Iwas 19 years of age for a year,
which very, very difficultactually having had that life
experience of being a managerand having been a girl in my
(39:52):
sixth form, where there werevery few girls there but the
only one who's mad, mad, mad maninto football.
I'd kind of built up all thoseexperiences and was able to cope
with it and so, going throughthat existence of being in my
early days in sports journalismand sort of working my way up
the ladder, I realized howimportant it was to try to
(40:16):
mentor other women whenever Igot chance or girls or be
available or do interviews.
And certainly before I had kidsI was spending any day off.
I had meeting up with studentsand spending half a day with
them.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
It's almost like a full-time role, isn't it?
If you just give yourself overto it, the mentors can be.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, absolutely, and I spent a lot of time in Cafe
Nero in Ealing where I wasliving the time meeting students
on a weekly basis and givingthem half a day to talk to them.
And now, unfortunately, I getall these emails.
Oh, I slightly panic because Iflag them up and think I must
reply.
I must reply, it's so importantI reply.
But finding a spare minute toeven file invoices or anything
(40:53):
like that is so, so difficult,especially with children.
Now it's really really, reallyhard.
But I do feel that thementoring side of things is
really important because Ididn't really have that.
I met Eleanor Oldroyd fairlyearly on and she was just
wonderful.
Everyone knows what EllieOldroyd's like.
She's just a fantasticcharacter and having met with
(41:13):
her and she just done aninterview and she gave me some
time to talk through how shedoes match reporting and that
kind of thing and I was so, sograteful to her for her advice
and her attitude and I justthought I need to be that person
for anybody that wants adviceabout getting into this business
and not just getting in andcracking on from a professional
(41:36):
point point of view, becauseobviously it's not just women,
it's boys as well and lads.
But I find the other side ofthings to be a responsibility
that I have taken on and I don'tI don't mean to sound
condescending when I say that,but I do feel like a big sister
kind of figure to some of thesewomen and I get frustrated when
I see some of them struggling.
(41:57):
Or I had an incident in a pressbox just last weekend where I
was downstairs but, um, theyoung female broadcaster
messaged me saying this dinosaurguy's just been so nasty.
He's like why are you beinghere?
What are you doing?
Yeah, and it's so unusual inthis day and age, and I was
really cross.
But he hadn't done it in frontof me and and had he done it in
(42:18):
front?
I've experienced that with himfor many years, by the way, and
he's still going.
And it makes me really crossbecause there's no reason to
behave like that.
She'd done nothing wrong, shewasn't in his seat, she wasn't
stealing his ISDM point.
She'd done nothing wrong andshe just didn't know who he was
and he was hugely offended andit was pathetic really.
So, um, I think things like thatwhere somebody's upset that
(42:39):
they've been made to feel very,very small purely because of
their gender, and then I thinkit is important to to be on the
end of the phone or you know, ifyou see somebody breaking
through or they've made theheadlines or something's
happened or a manager's beenvile to them, and then I do pick
up the phone on a Mondaymorning and just see if they
want to chat about it.
Because all these things I'veexperienced myself.
(43:00):
I've been shouted out bymanagers and had a few
ridiculous comments and putdowns and if you stretch it out
over 18 years, it's not many perseason at all, but it feels
horrible at the time.
And of course, social media nowis another element of it too,
whereby tweets that peoplereceive can make them feel
pretty rubbish.
So I think and having beenthrough all those kind of things
(43:23):
and and grown those layers ofskin to be able to deflect that
kind of unwanted attention, I dothink it's important to then
share that experience andexplain to them.
It's not you, it's him.
Yeah, as I did in the press boxon saturday when I saw that
journalist again, I said justremember, he does that to every
female.
It's not you, it's him.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
And in time it won't feel quite as bad and finally,
just to wrap up, are you thisgreat lead into that in terms of
women in football and the, andwhat that's become and done?
Do you feel that help ishelping women coming through in
terms of the sector as a whole?
Speaker 2 (43:58):
what women in football have done in this
country, I think, is justphenomenal.
It really is started by annacastle and shelly alexander, who
simply wanted to make apositive difference, and they
got a few of us on board earlyon, um, in that upstairs room in
a pub in 2007, just after myfirst match of the day, and no
(44:20):
staff, there's no expenses,there's no nothing.
We just meet up and initiallythe meetups were quite often
women offloading about thenegative experiences.
Yeah, they weren't meant to bea moan up at all.
They certainly were neveranti-men, as I think
occasionally the outsideperception might have been.
It was just difficult reallybeing a woman in football when
(44:41):
often you'd have you'd be theonly woman in the press box or
the only woman in the marketingdepartment or the only woman in
the dressing room or on thebench, and it wasn't all
negative by any stretch, butsome people did have very
difficult experiences and it wasa case of getting together and
sharing those experiences,because a problem shared is a
problem halved.
But beyond that, it thendeveloped into something whereby
(45:04):
we would seek out leaders invarious industries and get them
to appreciate the issues andmake a practical difference by
encouraging them to understandsome of the problems, why it's
important to have a diverseworkforce, certainly from a
gender diversity point of view.
There are studies which proveit's better for your business to
(45:24):
have diversity in it, I think,and what those women have
achieved the likes of EbruKoksal, who comes over from
Turkey and puts on these womenin leadership courses for people
working in football she does itfor free, by the way.
You know, she used to be chiefexecutive of galatasaray.
She's vast experience and thosepractical differences that I
(45:45):
keep referring to make a vastdifference in the industry.
And, and I think a lot of itwith women is about confidence,
because if you feel like you aremistrusted by your colleagues
because what would she know?
Well, she's a woman.
My wife, my daughters don'tknow anything about football.
I bet she doesn't either.
That kind of mistrust can bequite grating and quite tiring
(46:08):
and quite difficult to proveyourself when really you just
want to be judged on your ownmerits, not favorably, just
purely on your own merits.
So, um, I think what women infootball have done to to make
that difference and to changethe landscape of football in
this country and just remindpeople that just because women's
(46:29):
football was banned for 50years in this country doesn't
mean that those women who nevergot to play can't possibly know
anything about football, andthere's no reason why they
shouldn't be given opportunities.
It's a shame that ban happened,because I think that really did
set us back.
That's the only reason really,I think, why we didn't have a
generation of footballers thatwe see now with Phil Neville's
(46:53):
team, with perfectly capable,talented players.
They just weren't able tothrive in the same way that I
could never kick a ball in alocal team because there wasn't
such a creature.
So I think now we've made hugestrides.
The what if?
Campaign was just phenomenaland the backing from the
football industry of the likesof Miles Jacobson at Football
(47:13):
Manager and people who aremaking these pledges to do very,
very different tasks which makea difference, and it is
phenomenal, and I think being awoman in football now is way
less of a big deal, and that isjust the way it should be.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
You can absolutely feel Jackie's passion for
football and sport, and I'm surethat her story will be a
massive inspiration to anyoneconsidering a career in sports
media.
I'd love to know what you thinkabout the Game Changers, so
please do leave a review or giveus a rating.
Aside from making me very happy, your clicking the five-star
(47:53):
rating will also take thesestories to new audiences and
helps the podcast to move higherup the iTunes ranking.
If you want to get in touch,you can find me across social
media, at Sue Anstis, or lookout for the Game Changers on
Twitter, facebook and Instagram.
You can press the subscribebutton so you don't miss out on
(48:14):
future episodes and find outmore about all my guests at
promoteprcom slash gamechangers.
Finally, a huge thanks to thelovely team at Barclays for
supporting these podcasts, andalso to my executive producer,
sam Walker, at what Goes OnMedia.
Next week, I'll be talking toDame Sue campbell, former chair
(48:39):
at uk sport and one of the mostrespected women in sport.
Sue is now director of women'sfootball at the fa if you ask me
, why did I do it?
Speaker 3 (48:50):
yes, of course I love football.
I've loved it since I was achild.
But that wasn't the reason Idid it.
I did it because the FA is themost powerful brand in sport.
You know you might not likethat, but it is.
It speaks to millions of peoplein millions of homes and I
thought I wonder if this is mylast chance to really get girls'
and women's sport understood,valued and used as a driver for
(49:14):
social change.
Because if you can't do it withthe FA, you probably can't do
it.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
The Game Changers Fearless women in football.
Hello and welcome to the Game Changers podcast.
I'm Sue Anstis, a foundingtrustee of the Women's Sport
Trust and CEO of Promote, one ofthe UK's leading sports
communications agencies.
I'm thrilled to say that thisseries of the Game Changers is
supported by Barclays and willfocus on fearless women in
(00:29):
football, reinforcing Barclays'huge commitment to the beautiful
game.
Last year, barclays announcedthe biggest ever sponsorship of
women's sport in the UK, as theBarclays FA Women's Super League
became Europe's first fullyprofessional women's football
league.
A huge amount of Barclaysinvestment also went into
(00:52):
establishing the Girls FootballSchool Partnerships with the aim
of ensuring that all girls inEngland have equal access to
football in schools.
My guest today is passionateabout ensuring all women have
equal access to working insports media.
Sports presenter Jackie Oatleywas awarded an MBE in 2016 for
(01:14):
her services to broadcasting anddiversity in sport.
Jackie's best known by many asthe first female commentator to
appear on BBC's Match of the Day, which she went on to present
in 2015.
A former director of the Womenin Football Network, jackie
anchored the 2013 Euros and theWomen's World Cup in 2015 for
(01:38):
the BBC and then the Men's 2016Euros and the 2018 World Cup for
ITV Sport.
She was presenter of BBC'sflagship sports news show,
sportsweek on BBC 5 Live and nowhosts football and darts for
ITV and was recently appointedas the first female host of Sky
(01:58):
Sports' hugely popular show,sunday Supplement.
It's no wonder that in 2015,jackie was named as the eighth
most influential woman in sportby the Independent.
With such an incredibly busyschedule, I was so pleased that
Jackie made the time to meetwith me.
We met at her gorgeous home inSurrey and I began the interview
(02:19):
by asking her where her love offootball began.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
So I'm a little bit odd in many ways, but
particularly in this regard,because it wasn't the
traditional dad taking you tofootball and being mad on one
club, or brother kicking ballsaround in the garden, and then
you got into it that way.
I was at an all-girls schoolfor 10 years and in those days
girls didn't really likefootball or nobody I knew did
and so nobody at school evertalked about football.
(02:45):
Mum and dad didn't, my brotherno interest in football
whatsoever, and I was alwaysobsessed with sport right from
the word go.
My dad liked golf and snookerand I used to watch everything
on tv, all sorts of sports, um,wimbledon, wall-to-wall coverage
and olympics.
I'd watch everything.
(03:05):
So that was an innate passion.
But I had no introduction tofootball at all until I was
lying on the sofa one day, Ithink maybe I was ill and didn't
want to get up and change thetv channel and just watch this
game, and that was it.
I can't even tell you what gameit was.
There weren't many games on tvback then, it was one a week.
I think some switch flicked inmy head and I just thought this
(03:29):
is the sport for me.
I can still remember.
I could picture the scene in mylounge when I just thought this
is the sport for me and it wasjust absolutely right for me and
that was it.
I suddenly overnight became thebiggest weirdo and nobody
understood why or where it hadcome from.
And my good friends at schoolassumed it was because I was
trying to get in with the boysNot that we had any at our
(03:50):
school, you understand, but theythought that must be it.
But it wasn't, and I just wentand ripped all my Bross posters
down off my bedroom wall andunder my dressing table glass
and replaced them with nobody inparticular at first.
I just cut any pictures outfrom match shoot and 90 minutes
magazine and just filled mybedroom with football.
And to this day I don't reallyunderstand it.
(04:13):
It just happened?
Speaker 1 (04:15):
how old were you then at that point?
You think, good question.
Speaker 2 (04:18):
I'm still not entirely sure.
I think it was probably about13, 14 and from that day onwards
I would run to the front doorwhen the dog would bark, when
the express and star newspaperwould arrive, and previously I'd
open to page three to the tvguide and circle what I wanted
to watch that night.
And one day I just wentstraight to the back page and
I've got a local football team.
Speaker 1 (04:38):
I'll start supporting them and that was it really was
, when your friends were lookingat heat magazine or smash hits
or whatever it was.
Then, my guy, you were lookingat football magazines and yeah,
that was it.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
They were all reading girly magazines.
I used to have the jackieannual going back a bit um, and
that was it.
I used to.
I think was it shoot or match.
One of them was out on atuesday and a wednesday and I
knew the, the delivery date, thepublication date and I'd walk
sort of 15 minutes into theStars new shops in Codsall and
would buy those magazines onwhatever date they came out, and
(05:12):
I wouldn't just flick throughthem like you might do a girly
magazine.
I would read every single wordand absorb it.
And to the back of match andshoot, they would have all the
starting 11s and substitutes andwho'd come on and who'd gone
off of every team throughout theleague.
And I used to scour I don'tknow why, it sounds really odd I
used to scour all down thelower leagues and absorb what
(05:34):
was happening in.
It was the third and fourthdivision at that time, league
one and two now, and I wouldpick out play if there was a
feature on them.
I was thinking, oh god, maybewolf should sign them one day
and, you know, maybe I shouldwrite to the club and tell them
or something.
Mark Rankin of Doncaster looksgood.
And then they signed him.
I didn't write to the club, itwas a coincidence.
Speaker 1 (05:52):
Do you remember going to your first live match, your
first game?
How did that feel?
Did that live up to theexpectations you'd had in terms
of all?
You'd read and studied about it.
Speaker 2 (06:00):
Well it's funny because I went to the old
Molyneux stadium, which only hadtwo sides open, and one of the
stands that was open was milesaway from the pitch because the
club had run out of money beforethey could finish the stadium
redevelopment and two standswere condemned.
So it was a weirdnon-atmosphere.
But I used to stand on thesouth bank and got a season
ticket for 75 pounds and I usedto go up where all the action
(06:22):
was and there weren't reallymany girls or women around there
and I used to get asked well,how come you're not down the
front with the girls?
And I just couldn't think ofanything worse than being away
from the atmosphere.
And that was what it was about.
It was.
I was just absorbed by thepassion, the atmosphere, the
tactics or lack of them,everything to do with the game,
(06:44):
the sights, sights, the smells,the sounds, the travelling away
from home.
When you feel part of a gang,you feel part of a tribe,
because football is so tribaland I was just completely
absorbed by it and utterlyobsessed and I still am to this
day.
And did you play football aswell as?
a girl, we couldn't play atschool.
(07:04):
I went to an all-girls school.
We weren't allowed to play.
When I asked, went to avirtually all-boys school for
sixth form and we weren'tallowed to play there either.
So I set up a lower six againstupper six girls football team.
The boys paid a pound to acharity to watch us and to laugh
at us because none of us hadever kicked a ball before.
And no, I just bought myself aball and just taught myself how
to do keepy-uppies endlessly forhours in the garden and would
(07:27):
bash the ball against the garagedoor and annoy the rest of my
family.
So I taught myself that.
But there were no clubs, therewere no teams and nobody I knew
was remotely interested.
So it was only when I went touniversity at the age of 17, I
went to Leeds Uni and the veryfirst day of Freshers' Week I
made a beeline for the women'sfootball table and said I've
never played in my life.
(07:48):
Can I join?
And yeah, sure, and I had agreat time.
It was socially.
It was absolutely phenomenal,travelling all over the country,
all over Yorkshire, and got onso well with the girls, and just
that's what I'd love to havedone from the age of five, not
17.
But and then I carried onplaying down to London, joined a
(08:11):
local team in the GreaterLondon League, unfortunately had
a very, very serious injurydislocating my kneecap and
ruptured all the ligaments, lostall the cartilage under the
kneecap and was told it was sucha bad injury that I could never
kick a ball again.
Really, and um, so I haven't.
And that's when.
Speaker 1 (08:22):
That's when I ended up changing career as a result
of that, You're not a straightroute into media and journalism.
Was that the piece that causedyou to change your career
direction?
Your injury?
Speaker 2 (08:33):
I'd often thought about it.
It was growing up.
There was no, no inspiration interms of working in football
media or sports media yes, theodd female presenter and Helen
Rollison of course but it neverfelt like something I could
aspire to do personally, whetherthat was a confidence issue or
what.
I just didn't see openings.
(08:54):
I didn't see women going intojournalism.
I never really thought about acareer in it.
So what was the thing that madeyou shift?
The short version is that I dida German degree, travelled
around the world for a yearafter that, came back at the age
of 22 and thought, oh, Ithought I'd know what I wanted
to do by now and I didn't.
(09:14):
And so I did some temping inthe black country, in Dudley,
and I just hadn't thought untilthen that I could make a career
of sports journalism.
Because, despite having thisobsession growing up and at
school, where they all thought Iwas a little bit odd, probably,
I'm guessing nobody suggestedhave you thought about
broadcasting or writing, becausein those days you didn't really
(09:35):
see female sports writers.
So it was only after a fewyears in another job that I
started to get itchy feet and Iknew that wasn't for me, that
job, the career just wasn'tfulfilling.
So really I thought, god, I'dlove to start again.
How do I do it?
I'm just, and I readbiographies of people who had
got into this business and a lotof them had journalism
(09:59):
qualifications or workexperience or degrees in that
field and I didn't have any ofthat.
But I bought a book about howto become a journalist and it
started off by saying it's veryhandy if you have a language
degree and I thought, ah, okay,maybe I could, maybe I can do
this.
And then I decided to do take acouple of days off work and do
a couple of days work experienceat haters sports news agency.
(10:21):
I went to a couple of pressconferences and I was like, oh
my goodness, this is for me.
And I put my hand up and andasked Glenn Hoddle a question,
and and the answer made it intothe daily mail the next day and
I thought, oh, this is a buzz,I'd like to ask football people
questions.
This is great.
And so I gave up my job one daybecause I thought, well, I
can't get the work experience Ineed while being in another job,
(10:44):
and then of course I wouldn'thave an income living in London.
So I handed the notice on myflat and I rang around a few
friends and said look, this isthe decision I've decided to
make.
I really want to make a go ofchanging career, but I need to
find a way in somehow can I comeand stay on your floor for a
week or stay on your sofa bed?
(11:04):
And so I just took a duvet anda carrier bag with pillow and a
little backpack around London towhoever was kind enough to let
me stay on their floor, becauseeveryone was paying rent at that
time, you see, and um, and Ijust did as much work experience
unpaid as I could, and I bythat point I had done six months
of hospital radio at the end ofmy working day and I would do
(11:28):
an evening of print journalismcourse and a radio production
course.
So I was doing all this workexperience as much as I could
and finding out as much as Icould about the industry in my
spare time.
But eventually I had to give upeverything to be able to throw
everything at it.
And so that's what I did.
And I and I thought, well,where do I go from here?
I'm doing all this unpaid workexperience, but I need to.
(11:52):
I need to get a job, and youcan't really just get a job
without any kind ofqualification, unless you're
extremely lucky.
So I did that for a year inSheffield, moved up there lock
stock was a postgrad in injournalism or sports journalism
in broadcast journalism, so thatwas new.
So it's half tv, half radio.
But I had zero interest in tvand um, while I was there I
(12:13):
wrote to all the local bbcstations in the area and bbc
leads tv invited me in for twodays uh, work experience.
And while I was there went onthe leads united financial story
and helped the guy who wasdoing it because he wasn't into
football and they had a lot offinancial issues at the time and
collared the sports editor inthe newsroom and he said well,
(12:35):
would you be interested incoming to do a voice test
because we don't have anyone todo the non-league.
And I was like, yeah, too,right, got a long story short.
I did the non-league footballreporting 21 pounds a week and I
did not give a monkeys aboutmoney.
I'd saved not that I had loads,but I'd saved up all my bonuses
from my previous job and yeah.
So I just turned the WestYorkshire non-league football
(12:58):
scene into my first patch and Iabsolutely adored it.
I was still studying at thetime and I was so grateful for
the opportunity.
Every night and evening andnon-working day was dedicated
towards building contacts andgetting stories and I used to
write non-league footballstories for the guy who was
(13:19):
doing radio leads in the morning, because I thought you were
adding value to the station bygiving them non-league news, I
mean, and they weren't doingthat before.
So one thing led to another andI was asked if I wanted to do
shifts on BBC London after I'dgone down there one day and um
and spoken to the sports editor.
And one thing led to another, Iended up moving back down south
and um, five Live invited me in.
(13:42):
They got me to do the weekendbreakfast sport and things
carried on from then and I'dstarted doing commentary for bbc
leads, which I was extremelygrateful for, and carried that
on at five live and euro women's.
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Euro 2005 was my first break on that front with
them and were there many womenworking within that bbc, the
sports team, at the time whenyou arrived?
Then?
Speaker 2 (14:07):
so when I started at bbc leeds, there was tanya
arnold, who has been around fora very long time, very, very
experienced, so she was more onthe tv site.
She did a lot of the leedsunited rugby league stories
cricket.
My goodness, it's an amazingpatch, it really is, and it was
a great start for me.
And then when I moved down toBBC London, pete Stevens, the
(14:29):
sports editor, was brilliant atgiving women an opportunity.
He still is to this day.
I often phone him up or see himand suggest somebody to him or
ask him if he's got anybody forsomebody else, because he's just
great at giving peopleopportunities.
And but of course it wasextremely male dominated and
certainly local radio, and Ithink it still is.
Really I'm not too sure why,but I don't see too many women
(14:53):
in the local radio press box oreven local newspapers.
So nationally broadcast wise,yes, there are a lot more women
now on TV and on the radio,which is absolutely brilliant.
But I do worry a little bitabout the supply line, because
really that's where you need toget your experience, where
there's less pressure in aregional print media and
(15:18):
broadcast environment and youcan learn from people and kick
on.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
And when you started out at BBC, did people talk
about the fact that thereweren't enough women?
Was that something that waspeople making a conscious effort
to change that at the time?
Speaker 2 (15:31):
not.
Initially I was conscious thatin local radio there really
weren't many women certainly notdoing commentary.
There was one at the time who'sno longer doing it,
unfortunately, but in those daysyou would get into local radio.
You do sports bulletins forlocal station.
I was lucky on that patchbecause you would be sitting in
a box all day doing radio Leeds,york, sheffield and Humberside
(15:55):
sports bulletins and rewritingquickly and on air.
It's quick turnaround.
So I learned very quickly, um,but you tend to do that.
And then you do non-league orlocal football reporting.
There tended to be a bit of aglass ceiling that women didn't
tend to do commentary in thosedays.
But I said to my sports editorat the time, derm Tanner, that I
was keen to do it and ask foradvice.
(16:16):
And one day a game was calledoff that Radio Leeds were going
to do and they knew that I waskeen to do commentary.
So the reporting match I wasgoing to do Wakefield and Emily
against Worksop Town andsuddenly became the commentary
game and I was like, oh mygoodness, I got up at three
o'clock in the morning to do thebreakfast show that day and uh,
(16:38):
and had to try and do some prepfor the commentary and it was
quite funny because in thosedays we didn't really have much
information on the internet,especially non-league football.
There really wasn't much.
But uh, I did my best.
It must have been absolutelyterrible, honestly, the player
identification was so hard.
But they all six foot was short, dark hair, miles away.
You can even see the numbers.
You're in the corner low downin the commentary box.
(17:00):
But hey, I got through it and,um, yeah, so I thought, even
though there weren't many womenaround at that time, personally
I didn't see it as a barrierbecause I think maybe having a
bit of life experience helped mewith that.
I'd been a manager in aprevious industry in
intellectual property, I'dmanaged staff.
So I had that bit of maturityand a bit of self-confidence as
(17:22):
a human really, and I was quitegood with people and my, my
football knowledge I was veryconfident with because I was
that weirdo obsessive type.
So I didn't worry about thatand, yeah, I just thought you
know what?
I wasn't aiming high.
I was really aiming to work forFive Live one day.
That was the only ambition andI did have it in my head that
I'd like to try and do it beforeI was 30.
(17:42):
Just be on air once on fivelive before I was 30 and I
managed it at the age of 29 Ithink, and that was really it,
because I used to listen to fivelive all day, all evening, in
the car at home in my flat andtheir football coverage I just
thought was outstanding and Iidolized the people who were on
there and they were my kind ofpop stars really in those days,
(18:04):
because they were the people Ireally looked up to.
So to work for them was anabsolute privilege.
Speaker 1 (18:10):
And did you have any issues in terms of being a woman
in press boxes, people notbeing happy to answer your
questions, interviews andplayers or managers?
Was that ever an issue for you,or do you think your vast
knowledge kind of put you in astronger position than some?
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Well, it's funny because, going back to the
non-league days, my very firstreporting match was Bradford
Park Avenue against AshtonUnited in the Unibon Premier
League and I think it was themost terrifying experience of my
life, because they played atthe Horsefall Stadium, which had
one of those awful runningtracks around the outside and
they had one of those horribleenclosed press boxes which, if
you're doing print journalism,maybe that's okay because you're
(18:49):
a bit warmer, but for broadcastit was shocking because I just
remember these guys I don'tthink anybody was under the age
of 60 there and I think they'vebeen going a very long time and
they looked at this blonde thingwith a clipboard and a massive
mobile phone, thinking what isshe doing and what would she
know, and of course, it all feltcompletely silent when they
threw to me and I was soself-conscious.
(19:11):
It was a horrible feeling.
And I remember interviewingplayers at Frickley Athletic and
you know, standing by the thedressing rooms and asking them
for team news, and they lookedat me like I was a little bit
mad, like why do you care aboutthe team news and why do you
care about formations?
Because I just think theydidn't really have.
Maybe journalists didn't taketoo much notice, but certainly
(19:32):
not female ones, um, but I wasreally bang into it.
I wanted to know the formationand how they were going to play
and yeah, and I built my patchand worked my way up and and I
didn't have.
I wasn't self-conscious in thatregard because I felt I knew
what I was talking about.
I didn't have issues oh gosh,someone's going to find me out
that really wasn't a problemjust because I knew how hard I
(19:53):
worked and and how much researchI did.
So that was always fine.
But, yeah, I've only had a afew instances with managers
where I thought you think I'veno idea what I'm talking about,
don't you, because I'm a lassnot too many really in all these
years.
But there there was one managerI remember who, um, when I
(20:14):
interviewed him after a PremierLeague game actually.
But I could tell he was a bitof a dinosaur even though he
wasn't that old, but I couldjust tell.
And he was looking through meand I was asking perfectly fair
questions and I just knew hethought what's the point?
And then I remember well, I'mjust going to, I'm just going to
remark on a couple of histactical changes, and blah, blah
, blah, and he looked at mesuddenly, looked at me in the
(20:36):
eye, and he went you know, youfootball, don't you?
And I just thought, oh dear, ohdear, this is pathetic.
Really it was quite pathetic,but that was obviously his
preconception and I guess we allgrow up with preconceptions.
And you know, I've certainlywalked into Dixon's and Maplin's
before and realised that I'vesubconsciously gone for the male
(20:58):
shop steward rather than thelady because I was asking a
technical question.
I remember having a word withmyself afterwards thinking what
are doing?
You've, you've had this foryears in football.
But then when you think aboutit, it's kind of natural to a
lot of people to do that and ofcourse we still have that a
little bit today in terms ofwhat would she know?
Speaker 1 (21:17):
but I think people do realize that there are plenty
of us now who have grown up, youknow, madly passionate about
our sport and and having livedit and breathed it, and I think
it's a lot more accepted now,yeah, and I think you know along
, the likes of Gabby Logan andSue Barker and Ellie Oldroyd I
hear lots of talk about, andClaire Boring too, you'll
(21:38):
recognize almost as breakingthat glass ceiling for women's
sports presenters.
So do you feel theopportunities for women now
coming in are very differentfrom where it was 15 years ago?
Speaker 2 (21:47):
so women coming into sports presenting very much so,
absolutely, and it's thanks toall those wonderful women who
you mentioned then, who havebroken down those barriers.
Um, they probably wouldn't saythey have but or meant to, but
they've just got on with doingtheir job and doing it
fantastically well, whichnaturally then means that when
the next person comes in there'snot so much of a mistrust which
(22:10):
certainly I experienced withcommentary was the biggest
barrier was the mistrust.
What on earth would she know?
I bet she doesn't know aboutour team, but she couldn't have
that passion.
I've actually heard thesethings, which are hilarious, but
, um, yeah, I think it's sodifferent now, and it's so
different to the point thatpeople are actively looking for
good women to recruit.
That's the difference, becausethere is this drive now for
(22:34):
diversity, and a lot of peoplethink of the the d word as being
a pejorative term, but actuallyI think of it as being more
representative of the audience,and I remember a friend of mine
who's not a sport fan at all hassaid that one of the things
she's noticed with sort ofseeing me presenting is she
thinks that having a femalepresenter actually doesn't
(22:58):
exclude her from the show andfrom the subject matter, which I
hadn't really thought of beforeshe felt that, oh, actually the
show is for me.
If she's talking about it, thenmaybe, maybe it's not just an
old boys club that she'spreviously seen sport as being.
I think all white male panelsthese days are not really the
done thing, and on occasionsit's fine if it's a very small
(23:22):
panel about a certain subject.
But bosses now are realizingit's not good enough.
You don't just get any oldwoman, any old black person, any
old asian person, no way.
That's when you've got problems.
If you can't be bothered tofind the best people, then
you've got problems because thenit breeds resentment amongst
their peers and amongst theaudience and you really does
nobody any favors.
If you do diversity badly.
(23:43):
You have to say, okay, we'regoing to be diverse for the
right reasons, because you wantto represent our audience and we
, we must find the best people.
And if they're not immediatelyin front of us, well, do some
research, pick up the phone.
Who have you met?
Who's really really good attheir job but maybe hasn't
appeared on our radar, maybethey haven't pushed themselves
forward yet and maybe we need togo and get them and encourage
(24:05):
them, because we have to changethe culture whereby the best
talent and the best diversetalent comes to the fore because
the culture is there wherebythey are welcomed absolutely.
Speaker 1 (24:17):
You clearly made news 2007 when you were the first
woman to commentate on match.
The day seems like a long timeago now, doesn't it?
Um, can you give us a littlebit of that backstory?
I guess it didn't just kind ofhappen, or maybe it did just
happen, but how did that comeabout?
Speaker 2 (24:30):
well, it came about because I was commentating
regularly in Premier Leaguefootball for five live and
people who did that tended to beinvited to do a game for match
of the day, and that's preciselywhat happened.
So when I was asked to do it,yes, I was thinking, fantastic,
but for goodness sake, it wasone game and it was because I
was regularly commentating onfive live and I didn't think too
(24:52):
much beyond that.
There was part of me that hadsort of a little bit in the back
of my mind thinking will thisget noticed?
Will it become, become a story?
And I just thought I reallyhope not, because I'd done
everything previously todiscourage any kind of attention
.
For that reason, I was just ajournalist and I wanted to tell
(25:14):
the story.
I did not want to become partof the story and so I just
wanted to seamlessly slot in.
So therefore I didn't tellanyone and I just hoped it
wouldn't find its way into thenational media there was no
twitter in those days, butunfortunately that's very naive.
And of course it made its wayinto the daily mail on the
Tuesday before the Saturday, andthat's where it all started and
(25:34):
unfortunately there was thishideous build-up in which I was
front page news.
Back page news.
From Motti to Totti was theheadline in one paper.
Is football ready for JackieOatley was the front page of the
Guardian, a massive photographon the front page of the
Telegraph.
It was enormous and I just feltthis overwhelming wave of
(25:55):
pressure and I felt extremelylonely and isolated at that time
because I was single, I wasliving in a flat on my own, I
was just prepping and workingthe whole time.
So I still I still felt I wasfairly new in terms of
commentary.
Yes, I've been doing it a fewyears, but certainly this was
new and I felt very much thefocus.
(26:17):
It wasn't so much on me withradio because again, we didn't
have Twitter, so I didn't haveany social media abuse or
anything particularly.
No one really noticed, nobodyreally seemed to care.
I felt I was doing an okay jobafter initial major
self-conscious nerves and stuffto start with, and I did a
couple of horrendouscommentaries.
Purely because of that I feltthe weight of the world on my
(26:38):
shoulders and then came throughthat.
But TV again was just anothermatter.
So by the time the Saturday came, after I'd had every phone in,
had been debating whether Ishould be allowed to do it.
My radio alarm that I woke upto on the Wednesday or Thursday
morning at seven o'clock hadRachel Burden a good friend of
mine, actually, um, five live,um asking the question should a
(27:01):
female be allowed to commentateon match of the day?
It wasn't her question, ofcourse, it was the subject, and
I just remember feeling in theeye of the storm, thinking oh my
goodness, what is going on, andI had all these phone calls of
support from other commentatorssaying I can't believe this,
this is ridiculous.
I had loads of texts and emailsfrom colleagues I've met in
(27:22):
local radio, national media overthe years asking for interviews
, and I stupidly wrote extensiveemails and texts back
explaining politely why I wasgoing to decline, because I did
not want to be the story.
I did not want to add fuel tothe fire, I just wanted the
attention to go away.
I didn't want to be a celebrity.
On the contrary, I really,really did not want any profile
(27:43):
whatsoever, which is quiteagainst the way a lot of people
are now.
But I just didn't want that.
I just wanted to be as good afootball commentator as I could
and I worked so, so hard at it.
I spent every spare minutedoing prep, which was actually
very bad idea.
I should have been better atswitching off.
I'm still terrible at switchingoff and prep every, every spare
(28:05):
minute.
Now I just juggle youngchildren as well, which is, you
know, another ingredient to themix.
But it came, it went, I survived.
There weren't too many articlessaying how terrible I was,
which was quite nice.
But there was, unfortunately, awhole back page on the Monday
morning on the mail, which wasit was sad because it was
(28:25):
entirely untrue.
Um, I don't know where they'dgot the information from that
I'd had to go back to TV centreand write a script and redub the
entire eight and a half minutes.
It simply wasn't true.
I'd done my commentary.
I got down off the gantry andwent and interviewed the two
managers and then wandered backto my car thinking, okay, this
is weird.
I'm used to my commentary goingout live, but now I've got a
(28:46):
few hours for this awful, awfulthing to happen, which was
actually expecting a boatload ofabuse and what have you.
And it was.
It was really weird.
So to see that on a mondaymorning was just.
It was so disheartening becauseI had no comeback what do you
do in that situation?
Speaker 1 (29:02):
there isn't anything you can really beyond calling
them up for it.
Speaker 2 (29:05):
There's no more.
You can do with hindsight andthis is gosh, gosh.
Nearly 13 years ago I was.
I was so naive then, I didn'tknow how it worked.
I had nobody.
I felt like I had nobody whohad my back, and that's not
criticism of anybody, it's justhow I felt.
I just felt there should havebeen an apology.
I wish I'd phoned them upmyself.
(29:27):
I wish I got the journalistphone number and said why did
you write that?
Who told you that it's simplynot true?
And yeah, but as it was.
I just got my head down.
I did what I always did andjust worked hard, worked even
harder and did the very best jobI could, and.
But it was a very different era.
Then there was no social mediaand, I think, double-edged sword
(29:49):
.
Yes, I would have got aboatload of abuse.
It would have been horrible.
But equally, had I been onTwitter at that time, then
people would have known that Iwas completely immersed in
football, went to matches everyweek.
Speaker 1 (29:59):
They might have known my background, but I had no, no
online footprint then, becauseand I guess, moving on to now,
when you do have an onlinefootprint in Twitter and
obviously fantastic that yourecently appointed as the new
host of the Sky Sports SundaySupplement.
So huge congratulations again,more groundbreaking appointments
and amongst, I guess, all thathuge praise and the positive
messages from fans and mediacolleagues, there are also once
(30:20):
again, but now on Twitter somereally sexist comments, and my
reaction always is it'sgenerally a mix of shock that
these attitudes exist and thenamusement almost at the
stupidity of some of them.
They've usually got nine or tenfollowers.
Are you still surprised to seethose comments at that time?
Speaker 2 (30:39):
Amused.
I think I've just got to showyou one that I found yesterday
that I saved just to show myhusband at breakfast because it
made me laugh quite a lot.
I used to religiously watchthis program every week until it
turned into woman's hour, whichis very funny, because we
didn't even talk about women'sfootball and there were no women
on the panel, there wasliterally just me presenting it,
(31:01):
so that that actually made melaugh.
And now, with all thisexperience and it's almost like
a comfort blanket having thatexperience, because it's not so
much easier but it just feels somuch more natural to be able to
do your job and I do feel muchmore accepted now I don't feel
like I'm fighting fires at all.
I really don't.
And when I get comments purelybased on my gender, honestly I
(31:24):
can tell you truthfully it iswater off a duck's back, because
what are you supposed to dowith that?
What does it even mean?
If somebody says I thought theway you asked that question was
terrible, then I might be a bitoh, hang on a minute, I might
watch that back and oh, actuallyhe's got a point and I'll learn
from it.
I genuinely do take any ofthose kind of things on board.
If it was something, if it wassomething critical of my style
(31:46):
or something I'd said.
But I haven't actually had thosecomments, it's purely been
gender-based.
But I have had a couple whichhave actually made me smile,
which have been tweets ofapologies yeah, a couple of
those and and I've actually beenreally grateful to those,
because it takes guts to say doyou know what?
I was one of those people thatslagged you off token
(32:07):
appointment and actually I waswrong, and so I've tweeted them
back saying thank you.
I really appreciate the message.
I think it just shows thatperhaps we're making progress,
in the sense that, yes, it'sfrustrating you got that message
in the first place but actuallymaybe we're moving forwards,
that people are watching us andappreciating us for the job
(32:27):
we're doing rather than thegender that we are and do you
think it's worse in football andfootball commentary than
cricket and rugby and otherwhere you have other women
commenting on males playingsport?
I think it has been.
I'm really good friends withalison mitchell and our careers
have gone hand in hand really,and she is outstanding in what
she does.
And she says she's never hadany of this and you might think
(32:49):
that cricket's male dominated,but respectfully male dominated
dare I suggest that possiblysome of the cricketing audience
is a little bit more grown up onoccasion than some of the
football audience.
She hasn't had any of that.
She really hasn't, and I'm sohappy for her that she hasn't.
Speaker 1 (33:09):
And maybe maybe it's just that she's really good at
what she does, maggie alfonso.
Maggie says the same thing andshe doesn't mind being people
calling her out because she justmade the wrong comment or they
disagree with her but aboutbeing one.
But she hasn't had much of that.
I think people were surprisedto see a woman commentating on
the men's world cup.
But it isn't.
It's not in the way that thefootball, the vitriol that seems
to follow football commentary.
Speaker 2 (33:29):
I think Maggie's a bit different because she won
the world cup as a rugby playerand one of the comments when I
started doing match of the daywas well, show us your medals,
you know what have you won.
And of course those sort ofcomments make you laugh because,
well, what's john watson one?
What's any of the othercommentators?
When did they play?
Or you know how many medalshave they got?
(33:49):
So those kind of things.
Honestly, I couldn't give astuff about things like that.
But I think it just has been amatter of time.
Going back to the comment aboutgoing into curries or maplins
or whatever, that subconsciousbias that a lot of people have,
I think it takes a few years forus to really yeah, to really
tread new ground.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Once that ground's been trodden, then other people
follow and it's not such a bigdeal I'm going to move on to
dance because obviously anotherpassion of yours, big part of
your work on tv, why darts?
Would be my first question.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
Oh, that's a very simple one, because I was rung
up one day, um by somebodysenior ITV, who, completely out
of the blue, and offered me acontract.
Now, I'd worked with him before, so I knew him, but no, I had
absolutely no idea it was coming.
And the contract involved acertain number of days on
football, a certain number ofdays on darts, and I'd never
worked on darts.
(34:40):
It's on in our house.
We would watch the premierleague.
Um, my husband and I watch allsorts of sports anyway, so you
know.
So I knew what the players wereand what have you, but I didn't
ever think I would be working ondarts.
It just wasn't something Ithought would happen.
So when I was asked to do it,yeah, jumped at it, absolutely
jumped at it, but it was a steeplearning curve because it's a
(35:03):
very, very different sport toothers I've covered.
But I think the principles arethe same and that my role as a
presenter not a commentator, bythe way as a presenter is to ask
questions of those who haveplayed the sport, partly from a
base of knowledge, but partly onbehalf of the audience at home,
who may be avid darts fans andsome of them may be interested
(35:28):
darts spectators who want toknow more.
So I grabbed it with both handsand did as much research as I
could and and really got an ideaof that world, which you can't
know about until you startworking in it, because it's a
very different world.
I have to say I absolutelyadore it.
I just love it.
(35:48):
The ITV team, we are all sointo it and we just love, love
working on it.
Speaker 1 (35:53):
It's an absolute privilege and obviously Fallon
Sherratt's changed the, whichbrought me to dance this year
anyway, but do you think thatwill have a huge impact moving
forward in terms of women cominginto the sport and attracting a
new audience?
Speaker 2 (36:03):
well, this has been an absolute revelation, because
there aren't too many sportingfirsts left, are there?
There really aren't too many.
So when you have something likeFallon achieved at the world
darts championship which is opento women, by the way, it's not
a closed shop.
It never has been.
That's not the case.
It's just that they have theirown BDO Women's Darts
(36:25):
Championship and now they haveset up two qualifying events
specifically for women, so itdoes encourage them.
There will be two places, butit's just a case of a woman
breaking that barrier, ofwinning a match at a PDC World
Championship and that was afirst.
And then for her to follow itup by winning again against
(36:46):
Mensul Sulovic, who is one ofthe best players in the world
and, ok, she had a lot of peoplein on her side and people
booing the opponent, and that'sanother debate, but she was so
cool and so calm and, with dartsbeing such a meritocracy, it's
not like football where youcan't have men playing against
women.
Yeah, you can absolutely havewomen playing against men in
(37:09):
darts and there is thatpsychological barrier for the
men that they whatever peoplesay they really don't want to be
on that big stage being booedand being beaten by a woman,
even though ted evans wasincredibly magnanimous and one
of the new breed you know, younglad is a bit different for him,
um, but it was phenomenal andthe impact.
The pdc were astonished, youknow professional dance
(37:33):
corporation and the fact thatshe was on good morning britain
within a few hours she was onour bbc breakfast but all over
the world she was doing everyinterview that she could while
the attention was on her and ondarts and it's resulted in her
being invited to all the worldseries events.
And there are a few issues.
Maybe some players male playersmight be hang on, I've been on
(37:53):
the circuit for years.
I don't get, but it is the factthat they are trying to grow
the game into differentterritories.
And those two victories, andthat first one almost overnight,
changed darts forever.
Speaker 1 (38:03):
Still exciting now, isn't it?
Speaker 2 (38:05):
And she'll be in the UK Open in a few days' time, and
so too will Lisa Ashton, whowon a tour card as a
professional for the next coupleof years, which is fantastic.
So it was not just Fallon itwas Fallon that grabbed the
headlines but the likes of LisaMikuru Suzuki, who's the women's
back-to-back champion.
They are breaking new ground.
Speaker 1 (38:22):
Exciting stuff and I'm going to move on now.
So 2016,.
You were awarded an MBE forservices to broadcasting and
diversity in sport, and I lovedyour quote at the time that you
said I accepted it on behalf of,of every little girl who's been
told she shouldn't playfootball and every woman who's
been told to stay out of thepress box.
So it seems that having animpact on women in the future is
something that's very importantto you.
Do you think that's always beenthe case, or is that something
(38:44):
that's evolved over time?
Speaker 2 (38:46):
well, it's really interesting because when I came
into sports broadcasting, andparticularly on the football
side of things, it was for thesame reason that any lads would
aspire to go into that industrybecause you're madly passionate
about your sport and you'll haveto work in that world.
So initially I didn't have that.
Oh, I'm going to be a woman ina man's world, because it was my
(39:08):
world.
I didn't feel like I wasentering their world, I was just
me.
But of course it becameabundantly clear that there
weren't many, if any, other,women in the press box, and so I
found myself entering thisworld whereby I was being asked
about being the only woman to dothis, or the first woman to do
that.
And we don't have women aroundhere.
And it was or can I have a?
(39:31):
Can I have another lump ofsugar in that, please love you
know?
Um, so it became clear, butagain I feel that that life
experience I had of havingtraveled around the world, of
having lived in Germany when Iwas 19 years of age for a year,
which very, very difficultactually having had that life
experience of being a managerand having been a girl in my
(39:52):
sixth form, where there werevery few girls there but the
only one who's mad, mad, mad maninto football.
I'd kind of built up all thoseexperiences and was able to cope
with it and so, going throughthat existence of being in my
early days in sports journalismand sort of working my way up
the ladder, I realized howimportant it was to try to
(40:16):
mentor other women whenever Igot chance or girls or be
available or do interviews.
And certainly before I had kidsI was spending any day off.
I had meeting up with studentsand spending half a day with
them.
Speaker 1 (40:27):
It's almost like a full-time role, isn't it?
If you just give yourself overto it, the mentors can be.
Speaker 2 (40:31):
Yeah, absolutely, and I spent a lot of time in Cafe
Nero in Ealing where I wasliving the time meeting students
on a weekly basis and givingthem half a day to talk to them.
And now, unfortunately, I getall these emails.
Oh, I slightly panic because Iflag them up and think I must
reply.
I must reply, it's so importantI reply.
But finding a spare minute toeven file invoices or anything
(40:53):
like that is so, so difficult,especially with children.
Now it's really really, reallyhard.
But I do feel that thementoring side of things is
really important because Ididn't really have that.
I met Eleanor Oldroyd fairlyearly on and she was just
wonderful.
Everyone knows what EllieOldroyd's like.
She's just a fantasticcharacter and having met with
(41:13):
her and she just done aninterview and she gave me some
time to talk through how shedoes match reporting and that
kind of thing and I was so, sograteful to her for her advice
and her attitude and I justthought I need to be that person
for anybody that wants adviceabout getting into this business
and not just getting in andcracking on from a professional
(41:36):
point point of view, becauseobviously it's not just women,
it's boys as well and lads.
But I find the other side ofthings to be a responsibility
that I have taken on and I don'tI don't mean to sound
condescending when I say that,but I do feel like a big sister
kind of figure to some of thesewomen and I get frustrated when
I see some of them struggling.
(41:57):
Or I had an incident in a pressbox just last weekend where I
was downstairs but, um, theyoung female broadcaster
messaged me saying this dinosaurguy's just been so nasty.
He's like why are you beinghere?
What are you doing?
Yeah, and it's so unusual inthis day and age, and I was
really cross.
But he hadn't done it in frontof me and and had he done it in
(42:18):
front?
I've experienced that with himfor many years, by the way, and
he's still going.
And it makes me really crossbecause there's no reason to
behave like that.
She'd done nothing wrong, shewasn't in his seat, she wasn't
stealing his ISDM point.
She'd done nothing wrong andshe just didn't know who he was
and he was hugely offended andit was pathetic really.
So, um, I think things like thatwhere somebody's upset that
(42:39):
they've been made to feel very,very small purely because of
their gender, and then I thinkit is important to to be on the
end of the phone or you know, ifyou see somebody breaking
through or they've made theheadlines or something's
happened or a manager's beenvile to them, and then I do pick
up the phone on a Mondaymorning and just see if they
want to chat about it.
Because all these things I'veexperienced myself.
(43:00):
I've been shouted out bymanagers and had a few
ridiculous comments and putdowns and if you stretch it out
over 18 years, it's not many perseason at all, but it feels
horrible at the time.
And of course, social media nowis another element of it too,
whereby tweets that peoplereceive can make them feel
pretty rubbish.
So I think and having beenthrough all those kind of things
(43:23):
and and grown those layers ofskin to be able to deflect that
kind of unwanted attention, I dothink it's important to then
share that experience andexplain to them.
It's not you, it's him.
Yeah, as I did in the press boxon saturday when I saw that
journalist again, I said justremember, he does that to every
female.
It's not you, it's him.
Speaker 1 (43:44):
And in time it won't feel quite as bad and finally,
just to wrap up, are you thisgreat lead into that in terms of
women in football and the, andwhat that's become and done?
Do you feel that help ishelping women coming through in
terms of the sector as a whole?
Speaker 2 (43:58):
what women in football have done in this
country, I think, is justphenomenal.
It really is started by annacastle and shelly alexander, who
simply wanted to make apositive difference, and they
got a few of us on board earlyon, um, in that upstairs room in
a pub in 2007, just after myfirst match of the day, and no
(44:20):
staff, there's no expenses,there's no nothing.
We just meet up and initiallythe meetups were quite often
women offloading about thenegative experiences.
Yeah, they weren't meant to bea moan up at all.
They certainly were neveranti-men, as I think
occasionally the outsideperception might have been.
It was just difficult reallybeing a woman in football when
(44:41):
often you'd have you'd be theonly woman in the press box or
the only woman in the marketingdepartment or the only woman in
the dressing room or on thebench, and it wasn't all
negative by any stretch, butsome people did have very
difficult experiences and it wasa case of getting together and
sharing those experiences,because a problem shared is a
problem halved.
But beyond that, it thendeveloped into something whereby
(45:04):
we would seek out leaders invarious industries and get them
to appreciate the issues andmake a practical difference by
encouraging them to understandsome of the problems, why it's
important to have a diverseworkforce, certainly from a
gender diversity point of view.
There are studies which proveit's better for your business to
(45:24):
have diversity in it, I think,and what those women have
achieved the likes of EbruKoksal, who comes over from
Turkey and puts on these womenin leadership courses for people
working in football she does itfor free, by the way.
You know, she used to be chiefexecutive of galatasaray.
She's vast experience and thosepractical differences that I
(45:45):
keep referring to make a vastdifference in the industry.
And, and I think a lot of itwith women is about confidence,
because if you feel like you aremistrusted by your colleagues
because what would she know?
Well, she's a woman.
My wife, my daughters don'tknow anything about football.
I bet she doesn't either.
That kind of mistrust can bequite grating and quite tiring
(46:08):
and quite difficult to proveyourself when really you just
want to be judged on your ownmerits, not favorably, just
purely on your own merits.
So, um, I think what women infootball have done to to make
that difference and to changethe landscape of football in
this country and just remindpeople that just because women's
(46:29):
football was banned for 50years in this country doesn't
mean that those women who nevergot to play can't possibly know
anything about football, andthere's no reason why they
shouldn't be given opportunities.
It's a shame that ban happened,because I think that really did
set us back.
That's the only reason really,I think, why we didn't have a
generation of footballers thatwe see now with Phil Neville's
(46:53):
team, with perfectly capable,talented players.
They just weren't able tothrive in the same way that I
could never kick a ball in alocal team because there wasn't
such a creature.
So I think now we've made hugestrides.
The what if?
Campaign was just phenomenaland the backing from the
football industry of the likesof Miles Jacobson at Football
(47:13):
Manager and people who aremaking these pledges to do very,
very different tasks which makea difference, and it is
phenomenal, and I think being awoman in football now is way
less of a big deal, and that isjust the way it should be.
Speaker 1 (47:32):
You can absolutely feel Jackie's passion for
football and sport, and I'm surethat her story will be a
massive inspiration to anyoneconsidering a career in sports
media.
I'd love to know what you thinkabout the Game Changers, so
please do leave a review or giveus a rating.
Aside from making me very happy, your clicking the five-star
(47:53):
rating will also take thesestories to new audiences and
helps the podcast to move higherup the iTunes ranking.
If you want to get in touch,you can find me across social
media, at Sue Anstis, or lookout for the Game Changers on
Twitter, facebook and Instagram.
You can press the subscribebutton so you don't miss out on
(48:14):
future episodes and find outmore about all my guests at
promoteprcom slash gamechangers.
Finally, a huge thanks to thelovely team at Barclays for
supporting these podcasts, andalso to my executive producer,
sam Walker, at what Goes OnMedia.
Next week, I'll be talking toDame Sue campbell, former chair
(48:39):
at uk sport and one of the mostrespected women in sport.
Sue is now director of women'sfootball at the fa if you ask me
, why did I do it?
Speaker 3 (48:50):
yes, of course I love football.
I've loved it since I was achild.
But that wasn't the reason Idid it.
I did it because the FA is themost powerful brand in sport.
You know you might not likethat, but it is.
It speaks to millions of peoplein millions of homes and I
thought I wonder if this is mylast chance to really get girls'
and women's sport understood,valued and used as a driver for
(49:14):
social change.
Because if you can't do it withthe FA, you probably can't do
it.
Speaker 1 (49:18):
The Game Changers Fearless women in football.
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