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Editorial : My short career in football broadcasting

When I was studying TV production at university one of the pilots I produced was a magazine show about non-league football called Accrington Stanley – Who Are They? It was a live studio production with two pre-recorded segments and a studio discussion as well as a furious game of table football between the two guests – the managers of Marine FC and Northwich Victoria who were to meet for real that weekend.

The show was my baby. I took it from pitch to production with an all-female team and presented the show live myself. So when a locally based football website called myself and the show’s reporter to an interview for a job as a video reporter, I was confident. The reporter was good but she had no football knowledge : she mispronounced the names of grounds and players and wasn’t particularly interested in the game at all. After an hour long interview in which I talked football with the (male) editor and producer of the site, I thought there would be no contest – I had the knowledge and the live presenting skills.

I didn’t get it. The reporter got it because she had ‘the right aesthetic’. When my puzzled and possibly naive university tutor called the website they admitted that she got the job because she was prettier than me, and that their audience wouldn’t care whether she knew about football or not as long as they had an attractive woman to look at while she read an autocue. They were obviously right, but it wasn’t the best day of my broadcasting career. I was 21 and just about to go into the industry, but right at that moment I gave up on ever being in front of the camera.

The Keys-Gray debacle has thrown a number of issues into the spotlight where we are forced to lwatch them congeal under the glare like a day old half-time pie. In 2007 when commentated on her first game for the BBC’s flagship highlights show Match of the Day, there was an outpouring of nasty ire that a woman’s voice should be heard within the sanctity of football commentary. “It just doesn’t sound right”, “she was shrieking”, “women don’t know about football”.

On the last point – football isn’t difficult to understand. It’s certainly less taxing than open heart surgery, architecture, rocket science and myriad other subjects which women have managed to master over the years. Even the dreaded offside rule isn’t difficult to understand. It may be hard to call on some occasions, but FA registered referees like Sian Massey and FA registered football coaches and former players like Oatley shouldn’t have a problem.

I started on match commentary in the Unibond league, just like Jacqui Oatley. Unlike Jacqui Oatley I never progressed beyond that, but no-one ever complained to me about the quality of my match reporting from the ‘press room’ of the ground. They apparently found it refreshing that the lack of names on the backs of shirts led to me referring to players as ‘the chubby blonde left back’, or giving them affectionate nicknames like ‘lurch’. When I wasn’t trying to commentate on Runcorn matches from behind a patio door for local radio I was presenting the Saturday morning football show, which involved goal flashes, topical discussion and the ongoing formation of an Avengers-style squad with superhero sounding names like Primus.

Luckily I was never asked to prove my worth as a football reporter or commentator, probably because there were only eight people listening, whereas female football journalists have to prove themselves at a much higher level of competency than men. If you cry foul at that comment, take Sky’s Chris “I don’t really know what’s happening, Jeff!” Kamara  who manages to miss goals and sendings off. John Motson and Brian Moore are hailed as legends but make so many gaffes that they publish whole books of them. Annually. The difference is that these men are in the club. Football supporters (and I count myself among them) love them because the gaffes and the passion are part of the game.  But I like hearing Jacqui Oatley ‘shrieking’ at a goal because she cares. I like the fact that I can hear someone who sounds a bit more like me than Tony Gubba recapping matches on MOTD, and if Offside-gate means that there are more opportunities for women to be involved in football, then it can only be for the good of the game.