A game of 2 sexes

It was so refreshing to see a female official during Liverpool's visit to Wolves on Saturday afternoon. If nothing else it proves that women certainly can and do understand the off-side rule.

I think it's fantastic that women are being acknowledged, not only as being genuine supporters of the game but taken seriously and given the same chances to make a career out of the sport.

So I was pretty gutted when I heard the news today about the dinosaurs at Sky - Andy Gray and Richard Keys...and I was planning a good old rant but my good pal has beaten me to it in a far more eloquent manner than I could hope to match: http://gaviota-outbox.blogspot.com/2011/01/sexist-sky-nosaurs.html

So instead I'd like to make a special mention of Kenny Daglish and his daughter Kelly for their amusing responses to the story.

Kenny Dalglish sat down for a press conference and as a female reporter took her position at the front Kenny turned to the Sky reporters next to her and said "Are you boys alright with her being here?" which was met by the correct proportions of shame on the part of the Sky reporters and laughter by everyone else.

Following that Kelly tweeted a sarcastic comment on her twitter account claiming she was exhausted from learning about the off-side rule and needed to buy some shoes to recover!

If Andy Gray and Richard Keys imagine for even a second that the daughters of some of the most successful sportsmen in the country don't understand the rules of the game then they really should be ashamed of themselves.

It is really quite remarkable that Gray & Keys can be so narrowminded and shortsighted when amongst their own peers there are successful, popular and knowledgeable female reporters who have grown up living and breathing football in much the same way as I would imagine any female referee/lineswoman would.

Wind up the clock boys, it's 2011. You pair of old fashioned sexist fools.

Bandwagonesque

I know it's 2010 and we're generally over the whole gender stereotyping thing but there's still a sort of wierd blur around football. I love football, I'm maybe not as passionate about it as my male friends but I'm certainly way more passionate about it than most of my female friends.

So while most women complain about being a football widow: "They're playing again? They played last week!" there is a whole different view point when the World Cup rolls round. Suddenly women all over the country see the joy of standing in a crowded pub, drinking beer and trying to catch a glimpse of a screen in the gap between hulking great shoulders. Men smile down at their girlfriends singing "Three Lions" at the top of her voice and never once wonder why he's never heard her sing "You'll Never Walk Alone".

I left work early to catch the England v Slovenia game. My boss had booked the afternoon off and was quite happy for me to use some flexitime to leave at 2:30pm. Then we got word from the Chief Exec (Sunderland fan. Female) that everyone was free to leave from 2pm if they wanted to watch the game.

Defoe's goal is being shown over and over as the only goal England have scored in the World Cup. I knew we'd go through, I knew we'd step it up for the final group game, but we should be better than that. We are a football nation afterall.

And have you noticed that every advert on TV refers to the World cup. Macdonalds has a whole poem dedicated to people watching the World cup while eating a big mac, and on the final screen it says Official Restaurant...What does that mean? MacDonalds is officially a restaurant?

I suppose I don't watch athletics except during the Olympics. I guess even those most dedicated haters of football want to support their country.

There is one thing I don't like about football though - the celebrity of it. I've never understood the attraction to the celebrity world and I don't understand why people are paid such ridiculous amounts of money - ok so you can convincingly pretend to be a mass murderer/battered wife/slightly humourous person in love...but do you deserve to be earning millions of pounds for that? Compare how much Keifer Sutherland gets paid to play Jack Bauer with how much a Police officer earns...do we really value being entertained over being kept safe?

Football is a massive thing. It dominates the TV, people's lives revolve around it and the price tag that goes with it is astonishing. The government has just raised taxes in order to try and get the country out of debt and yet football players are earning £90k a week. A WEEK???? I wouldn't know what to do with £90k a year...I mean really...Nurses save lives, they care for people, Firefighters save lives there are people out there earning crap wages but doing jobs that the world needs to survive.

Is playing footy a few times a week really deserving of £90k a week? And if these plyers are on such over inflated salaries...don't you think they should be trying a bit harder to win?