I hate political correctness. I also miss Margaret Mountford on The Apprentice. I was just growing to like Karren Brady as her replacement, but then of course her personal agenda with being a woman in football came to the fore again. Sorry Karren, but didn't you shack up with one of the players whilst you were at Birmingham? No disrespect, but it's hardly the image a woman in a man's world wants to present is it?
Yes, what Richard Keys and Andy Gray said on Sky Sports was a bit insulting towards women. Gray is an ex-professional footballer of the 70s and 80s from Clydebank. Why was everyone so surprised by his comments? I doubt the Rangers dressing room was ever a place where the Suffragette Movement was ever discussed, less so the influence Jane Austen had upon the view of female literature. No, it was probably all about the birds they grinded on in Bamboo the week before and what mischievious acts they got up to involving a video camera afterwards, in the day before YouTube could expose you as... well, a bit of a knob really! If you wanted young men to grow up learning to respect women as equals, football was not the place to do it. These views will have remained since Sky Sports was launched in 1992 and I'm pretty sure the issue of Sian Massey was not the first time he and Keys shared a chuckle about women in the game. They just never got caught, despite the fact that any prior discussions would have been done in front of camera and techincal crew. None of whom went to the press then. But, like Gordon Brown and Ron Atkinson before them, they got caught with their pants down and their microphones on. Now Monday Night Football will never be the same again.
Which brings us back to Brady. Again, Keys was a little tactless in essentially disregarding her opinions but he did try and apologise to both women. Massey accepted, Brady didn't answer her phone. "He probably thought I was in the house doing the ironing when I was in fact trying to secure West Ham the soulless box of a stadium that the Olympic Stadium will be after the Games" she said (more or less). Which roughly translates as, "I am a strong woman who, to prove myself as a strong woman capable of roughing it with the big boys, will lack the good grace to accept this apology and move on from what was just pub banter". Because we've all done it. We have all been with a group of lads, joking how women can't park and don't know the offside rule. I haven't been kicked out of medicine yet for my "prehistoric views". Because all of these comments need to be taken into context and not to heart. Some would say it is that sensitivity that has held women back for so long as men see it as a weakness.
We actually had Morag Pirie running the line at Almondvale for us last year. She was no worse than any of the other clowns who turn up on a Saturday but that doesn't necessarily guarantee a precise understanding of the offside rule anyway! And there were at least 1000 jokes made inside the ground at her expense. I'm not saying it's right, but it certainly isn't the sole domain of two axed Sky Sports presenters. The upshot is that Keys and Gray will now become very rich working for Al-Jazeera and Massey will forever be known as "that woman who was the victim as sexism".
As opposed to the good referee that she actually turned out to be. Fair? Or a reflection on an issue that is more minor and yet more widespread than has been made out to be?
RM
Yes, what Richard Keys and Andy Gray said on Sky Sports was a bit insulting towards women. Gray is an ex-professional footballer of the 70s and 80s from Clydebank. Why was everyone so surprised by his comments? I doubt the Rangers dressing room was ever a place where the Suffragette Movement was ever discussed, less so the influence Jane Austen had upon the view of female literature. No, it was probably all about the birds they grinded on in Bamboo the week before and what mischievious acts they got up to involving a video camera afterwards, in the day before YouTube could expose you as... well, a bit of a knob really! If you wanted young men to grow up learning to respect women as equals, football was not the place to do it. These views will have remained since Sky Sports was launched in 1992 and I'm pretty sure the issue of Sian Massey was not the first time he and Keys shared a chuckle about women in the game. They just never got caught, despite the fact that any prior discussions would have been done in front of camera and techincal crew. None of whom went to the press then. But, like Gordon Brown and Ron Atkinson before them, they got caught with their pants down and their microphones on. Now Monday Night Football will never be the same again.
Which brings us back to Brady. Again, Keys was a little tactless in essentially disregarding her opinions but he did try and apologise to both women. Massey accepted, Brady didn't answer her phone. "He probably thought I was in the house doing the ironing when I was in fact trying to secure West Ham the soulless box of a stadium that the Olympic Stadium will be after the Games" she said (more or less). Which roughly translates as, "I am a strong woman who, to prove myself as a strong woman capable of roughing it with the big boys, will lack the good grace to accept this apology and move on from what was just pub banter". Because we've all done it. We have all been with a group of lads, joking how women can't park and don't know the offside rule. I haven't been kicked out of medicine yet for my "prehistoric views". Because all of these comments need to be taken into context and not to heart. Some would say it is that sensitivity that has held women back for so long as men see it as a weakness.
We actually had Morag Pirie running the line at Almondvale for us last year. She was no worse than any of the other clowns who turn up on a Saturday but that doesn't necessarily guarantee a precise understanding of the offside rule anyway! And there were at least 1000 jokes made inside the ground at her expense. I'm not saying it's right, but it certainly isn't the sole domain of two axed Sky Sports presenters. The upshot is that Keys and Gray will now become very rich working for Al-Jazeera and Massey will forever be known as "that woman who was the victim as sexism".
As opposed to the good referee that she actually turned out to be. Fair? Or a reflection on an issue that is more minor and yet more widespread than has been made out to be?
RM
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