Interview by Steve Wright
Women’s football in Nottingham has been through the mill recently. With the WSL’s 2017 Spring Season just about to kick off Notts County Ladies were folded and the city’s representatives in the top flight lost. That’s only part of the story though. The “Lady Pies” only existed at all because of the franchise style transfer of the long established Lincoln Ladies to the city in 2014, as a consequence of Ray Trew owning both that club and the Notts County men’s club. At that time the long established Nottingham Forest Ladies were preparing their own Women’s Super League bid but a number of external factors colluded to set them back. It has taken three years of hard work for the club to recover but as they head into the 2017/18 Premier League season the Forest Ladies are looking forwards again and ambitions are high. Journalist and presenter Jacqui Oatley MBE has for many people been the face of women’s football in England having anchored the BBC’s coverage of major women’s tournaments over the past few years and The Women’s Football Show (as well as covering the men’s game and a range of other sports). She is also an FA qualified coach and sits on the board of Women in Football and she kindly took some time out of her busy schedule to talk to Steve Wright about how the game has developed in recent years and where it might be going. The women’s game has come a long way in the last few years with the national team making very positive headlines and the formation of the Women’s Super League (WSL). Where do you think the game is in its development and what are realistic targets for the next 5 years? It needs to take things step by step. It’s difficult to see the bigger picture of where it can ultimately go, we can only really see what could happen next. But I think it’s got huge potential, I really do, and I think women’s football should be thinking big even if it is long term. I think the next step is to get more people through the gates, I keep saying this, bums on seats. If they get more bums on seats then there is much awareness of the team, they raise more money, they get more sponsorship and the television cameras will come, because if TV cameras are going to be showing empty stadia it’s just not attractive to broadcasters. Whenever you see the Liverpool games at the Widnes Select Stadium you’ve always got the cameras in the stands where the fans are so you’re showing three empty stands so it’s just not attractive. There are quite a few things which need to happen for women’s football to move to the next level. I know a lot of people talk about fixtures and that is a really tricky area just because they remain fairly haphazard due to the number of international weeks that there are for the FA to contend with and work around, but I think if they can get a combination factors in place they can progress. A women’s football stadium in Liverpool for example would be amazing, I think that’s a really big thing. You’ve got such a mad crazy football city and they’re having to go out to Widnes which is pretty soulless really, even though it’s a step up from where they were previously in Skelmersdale. Things like that, if you can give women’s football a home where people recognise it, they know it, they can attract good players, where players can be the best that they can be with the facilities they’ve got, such as at Manchester City for example, then I think that’s one of the building blocks. You also need a marketing strategy, I despise the word strategy but there needs to be a lot more common sense, it’s not always about funding. I think they have to have the right people in the right jobs for promoting the women’s game. Personally I think there is so much more that could be done with the marketing of it, especially using social media that is free, but it needs a lot more initiative. I get a bit frustrated by that, the number of people that don’t know where their local stadium is; they don’t use the men’s twitter feed as much as they should do to promote the women’s team. It just needs to have the right people pulling the strings on that front. Do you think that the audience for women’s football, the people that the game needs to reach, is the same audience as watches the men’s game or is it a different group all together? I think some of them are the same people, there are a lot of Arsenal men’s supporters who go and watch the Arsenal women’s games and get frustrated when they are on at the same time and they can’t go to both. So there is definitely that crossover, which is really healthy. But then I do think you’ve also got a number of people who go and watch the women’s teams but don’t necessarily go to the men’s, they might not even support the men’s club. So in Nottingham you didn’t have a WSL Forest side but you maybe get neutrals or even Forest fans going to watch the Notts team bearing in mind it’s the women’s game and they get to see the opposition and all the rest of it. I think it’s way more family orientated and there is lots to be done in terms of targeting local families to come and watch women’s football, they might not be into football at all, the mums and dads, but I think there is so much more that could be done with the likes of Mumsnet. I never see anything in the way of adverts or anything on the Mumsnet website and emails saying “It’s Bank Holiday Monday, it’s the FA Cup Final and tickets are £10 for the 4 of you”. I’ve never seen that, why not? There’s a whole massive market out there of parents who want to do activities with their kids and take them to live sport and they don’t have a clue it’s on. So I think it’s half and half. I am currently reading Girls of Summer by Jere Longman about the 1999 World Cup winning US team. It really comes across that they are very aware of the responsibility they carry for the whole game, the opportunities they could open up for future generations if they win in front of packed stadium crowds. Does the England team have that sense of responsibility now? They certainly come across very well as role models. They are, but I still think that more can be done to promote them. I think they need to promote themselves better. I think because they obviously focus on the fitness side of the game and on themselves, they probably feel that the marketing is done by marketing and promotions people. Firstly I don’t think enough is being done by those marketing people to promote women’s football but also the players themselves have to take more responsibility for promoting themselves and their teammates. Some of them do but I don’t see enough women’s footballers on Twitter, I don’t see enough of them saying come down to XYZ stadium on Sunday, 2pm kick off you can pay on the door, or here’s the link to the ticket office website. I don’t see that, I see a handful of them doing it but they all need to be doing it staggered across the week. They should be given a timetable, even if it means setting there feed to tweet at a certain time, or reminding themselves on their phone that your time to tweet is Thursday afternoon, so it’s not all at the same time. People follow these players and they need to get more people through the gates. They can’t just focus on themselves, be the best players they can be and hope people come. Women’s football is not at that level yet that Liverpool’s men’s club and Manchester United’s men’s club are (well there isn’t a women’s club there but you know) and I think too many people in the women’s game think of it as being like the men’s game, particularly the press office. it drives me potty when I see certain press officers trying to keep the media at arm’s length and not engaging with them, you can’t afford to do that in women’s football, you have to pick up the phone yourself and phone journalists and talk to them about stories and would they like to do a feature on X, Y, and Z; give them access. I know a handful of really good positive women’s football writers who want to do proper stories about the football and they are struggling to get access. It’s absolutely crazy, the women’s game cannot sustain that attitude to the media. It’s not all of them, I’m not tarring all of them with the same brush, but I hear so many stories from women’s football journalists saying not only are they struggling to get the space in newspapers but when they do manage to get something commissioned they can’t the access and it drives me up the wall as somebody who’s just really keen to see the women’s game kick on. People at the top of PR organisations need to stop treating the women’s game like the men’s game, put different people on it if that’s what it takes, anybody who has a passion for it, who actually gives a stuff and who is trying to go out of their way to get more bums on seats. There’s so much potential that’s not being tapped into. How important do you think it is that there are female role models in the game? Absolutely essential. There’s a saying “If you can’t see it, you can’t be it” and you although you can it is less likely for it to happen. In the same way that when I was growing up I didn’t see any women players on TV or in magazines or anywhere, nor did I see female football presenters; that came much later in my career when I thought sod it I’ll do it anyway, when I was a lot older. I was never going to be a footballer regardless of talent, or lack of it, because there were no opportunities to play until I went to university. So the two things go hand in hand, but now there’s no excuse, we do see women’s football on TV. Admittedly you’re not likely to just stumble across it at tea time because The Women’s Football Show is on in the middle of the night so it’s the diehards who record it and then watch it back, but at least major tournaments are now on TV, you can watch England games on TV which you couldn’t when I was growing up. And I think having people like Alex Scott and Eni Aluko on mainstream TV in men’s football shows I think that’s really important, because if you don’t have parents who are already into football and take you to a certain channel at midnight or to BT’s WSL coverage you’re not going to stumble across it, whereas you will stumble across Alex Scott reporting on the men’s FA Cup Final because she’s there and it comes up on the screen how many FA Cups she’s won for Arsenal ladies and you think oh wow I didn’t realise that and maybe go and check the team out. Realistically where do you think we have got to in terms of women being accepted in football across all the available roles? I think there are a lot more women getting involved in football now and obviously I’m on the board of Women in Football so I see women coming through, but I also saw an article in the Mail this morning about how the FA are short of 2 or 3 senior women on their board and it made me roll my eyes in terms of how weird a situation is it whereby the FA are short of women and they can’t meet the government targets for women on boards? It just proves that there are plenty of challenges still in place, so the question is are there women there that should be rising to the top and you wonder whether they are looking in the right places. Women in Football are key to helping in that and that’s what we seek to do, we want to promote and help other women, show the talent that is out there and help point them in the right direction and connect people. That’s a large part of what we do and what we want to do, to give people the leg up that they deserve through their talent and ability. But the opportunities are definitely there for women in football now. There’s no reason why you wouldn’t have a female financial director at a club, or a managing director. There are probably still those challenges of going into a boardroom as a female CEO but I don’t think it’s anything like how it used to be because times have changed and society has changed and that kind of behaviour, of discriminating against women in boardrooms, is simply not acceptable anymore. Money seems to have come into the game very quickly at the highest level, flowing through from the Premier League’s success in growing revenue and also the formation of the WSL. Is that a problem when it comes to maintaining a competitive league and attracting fans to other clubs that maybe don’t have that same financial clout? There’s definitely a danger of a split and many people would say it’s already there effectively with Chelsea, Arsenal and Manchester City pulling away from the others because of the resources they have. But I’m slightly different to the people who criticise that because I say Hallelujah! It’s not just Arsenal now who are recognising the potential of the women’s game. Manchester City have wholeheartedly bought into it and from what I’m told the staff genuinely have to be on board with supporting the women’s game as well and that a wonderful thing. How can anyone say that what’s happening at Manchester City is worse than what’s happening at Manchester United where there is zero appetite for the women’s game beyond the Centre of Excellent level? So I get frustrated by people who criticise Arsenal Chelsea and Manchester City, save your anger for other clubs who don’t wholeheartedly buy into the women’s game but have ample resources to do just that. I’m talking to you Manchester United. So does that mean that at the top of the game it really requires established leading men’s clubs to be alongside those women’s clubs? Yeovil have done really well getting to WSL1 from the Women’s Premier League without funding but are now perhaps finding it hard and Notts tried to go toe to toe with them and folded, so do those clubs have to settle for something a little less than competing at the very top? I think it’s wonderful when you have smaller clubs that have good people promoting the game and putting in the long hours, often unpaid, getting their clubs established. It’s brilliant and it’s the basis of the game in this country. It’s a meritocracy and the game at all levels in both genders needs those people who absolutely maximise what they have and build a youth policy and get all the local players playing for them. I think when you talk about challenging at the top of WSL1 reality kicks in, in the same way that it does in the men’s game and not just in football but in any kind of business, the ones with the best resources tend to get the best results for obvious reasons. They can afford the best facilities, the best staff, the best players, that’s just life, but I’d rather we be in a situation where we have Manchester City, Arsenal and Chelsea genuinely caring about the women’s game, giving their backing to it and going for it and competing, than saying there should be caps on the support the men’s clubs can give to make sure that the smaller clubs can creep up. Personally I don’t agree with that, yes it would be wonderful if we had a Leicester City in the women’s game whereby Yeovil came through and took on City, Arsenal and Chelsea and beat them, that would be amazing, but I don’t think there should be any restrictions in place to stop the top clubs from giving their support. Of course if it gets out of hand you need to look at it again but I certainly wouldn’t want to be sending out the message to big clubs like Liverpool, Manchester United or Tottenham don’t give your support to the women’s game too much because we’re going to try to restrict your growth, because the men’s clubs will just say we’re not interested, we’re not going to fight a battle with you we’ll put our resources into the men’s game, which is not going to help the women’s game grow at all. If Manchester United arrived on the scene now and said “We’ve seen the light, we want to set up a senior women’s club”, should they set it up down the pyramid and work their way through now that there is a pathway, albeit a narrow one, or is it still in that almost US expansion style phase where they get their team because they are just so big? It would be a balance for the FA to look at because they can’t say you can just walk straight into WSL1, they couldn’t do that they would be lambasted, but equally they wouldn’t want to put off Manchester United from having a women’s team, they’re desperate for one. From what I gather there would be one of two things they could do. One is to start some way down the food chain, not right at the very bottom but start lower down, or they could takeover another club, like Oldham that’s higher up, and rename it like MK Dons. Whatever they do is going to be controversial and there’ll be opposition to it, but you look at what Man City did going into WSL2 and they were soon up there, not too many people question it now. The Donny Belles thing was controversial but I got a load of stick for pointing a few facts out on that with people getting so swept up in the emotion of it without actually looking at some of the facts at the time. but I think now would women’s football really be better off without Manchester City? Personally I don’t think so. I’m not saying it should be at the expense of any other club I’m just saying that I think we need to have those standards, not just one club, an Arsenal that used to win 7-nil every week and the players themselves were bored to tears at the lack of competition. You need to have that competition with the top 3 or 4 and then if Liverpool want to up their game as well, but then you’ve also got to make sure you’ve got the platform for the likes of Sunderland to be encouraged to go back to being full time because them going part time was a step back and another kick in the teeth for the game ahead of what happened at Notts County.***
From a personal perspective it feels to me like women’s football both demands and deserves the support of the wider game as it seeks to further establish itself. Women and girls should not have to fight for the opportunity to play the game, or to make a living from it, and established men’s clubs should be putting their women’s team right at the heart of what they do. Over the summer Leeds United have adopted Leeds Ladies into their club and Southampton have formed an Under 18’s team that looks like it could develop into a senior side, which would leave only Manchester United in the Premier League lacking a senior women’s team. Forest Ladies were established in 1990 and have been representing the city with pride ever since and it is encouraging to read the new Forest Chairman, Nicholas Randall QC, talking positively about supporting the women’s game. It’s not necessarily a case of 20,000 fans watching the men on a Saturday and then the women on a Sunday but I would encourage fans to support their club as a whole. Maybe go along to a game, but if that isn’t possible at least consider supporting the team through its membership scheme as a means for increasing opportunities for women and girls. There is a genuine opportunity for the ladies club to move forwards this year and with the support of the rest of the Forest family they can deliver on all of their ambitions.
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