A woman's place?
Anyone who picks up a microphone and commentates on a football match instantly opens themselves up to criticism and public scrutiny. It goes with the territory. However, I don't think any commentator in the history of has been exposed to the sort of pressure that accompanied Jacqui Oatley onto the gantry at .
It wasn't supposed to be like that. We issue a monthly rota sending 10 commentators to games most weekends. As well as our regular names, we quite often borrow a commentator or two from our colleagues at Five Live for a guest appearance. John Murray or Conor McNamara, to name but two. On this occasion, the radio commentator in question happened to be a woman, and someone somewhere decided, rather unhelpfully, that the newspapers should know about it.
We knew there would be considerable interest but, perhaps naively, hoped that any fuss would follow , rather than precede it. Even so, the level of attention has bordered on the ridiculous, even if most of the coverage has been overwhelmingly positive. Maybe the corridors of ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Sport don't accurately reflect the rest of the country, but we just saw it as a natural progression. Jacqui is a good journalist, knows her football inside out and has served the same apprenticeship as most of our other commentators, in local radio and then Five Live.
The question of tone of voice brought up by some critics is really just one of familiarity. I'm old enough to remember the same objection accompanying and when they became the first female newsreaders in the 1970s. At about the same time, some people claimed that the emerging black players, while talented, were not tough enough to cope with the English winter. Anyone who raised either objection now would rightly be ridiculed. The new and unfamiliar, quickly become the norm.
The other bizarre notion is that, all of a sudden, you have to have played football at the highest level to be involved in covering it. By playing football at university and then at a decent amateur club level, Jacqui's playing credentials are pretty similar to, if not better than those of most of her commentary and press colleagues. And, for that matter, those of most of us behind the scenes in the football media.
Given the amount of sound and fury generated - photographs in most papers, journalists harassing her family, football dinosaurs being wheeled out to disapprove on principle before they'd even heard her - it was to Jacqui's credit that she showed up at Fulham at all. However, as a Wolves fan of many years standing, she's made of sterner stuff. She did a thoroughly professional job, and can now take pride in having made her own small piece of television history, while looking to build on the experience.
No-one bats an eyelid any more when Clare Balding presents horse racing or Sue Barker hosts Wimbledon. actually became the first female presenter of an MOTD Premiership show the other week, but she's so credible and well-established in the public consciousness that no-one noticed. The commentary box was, however, hitherto an exclusion zone. Now that the taboo's broken, there will be a good deal less fuss when Jacqui, or any other woman, appears there again.
The dinosaurs probably don't realise that ³ÉÈËÂÛ̳ Football has many women on the staff. Women have directed our studios for many years, and now edit programmes, direct outside broadcasts and supervise many of our match edits, features and analysis sequences every week. I'd challenge anyone to guess whether any individual part of our output was produced by a man or a woman. I can honestly say it's not even an issue, as we rota our programmes. As Jacqui has just proved, if you know your stuff and can do the job, your gender is irrelevant.
