When Sian Massey kept her flag at her side as Raul Meireles raced through the Wolves defence at the weekend, the television camera zoomed in on the young assistant referee. Everyone thought it was offside and the headline writers were ready to pounce.
How can a woman understand the offside rule and how will the feeble creature be able to keep up with these magnificent men on the field? That was the attitude many seemed to hold before kick off. Sky presenter Richard Keys and pundit Andy Gray have been suspended for their allegedly sexist remarks ahead of the game.
Everyone in old gold on Saturday was willing her to wave that flag, save us a goal and prevent all hell breaking loose in the media about the foolishness about putting a woman on the touchline.
Ms Massey ignored the 25,000 fans screaming at her, kept her cool knowing the world was now focused in on her and kept perfectly still. Then came the replay and the undeniable fact – she got the decision absolutely right.
With that single correct decision, the debate about whether it’s appropriate to have women running the line, or refereeing, should be over. She might get the next one wrong of course, but a man on the line will drop a clanger every 180 minutes or so too.
There ends the discussion on women officials. Instead I hope the energy is focused on discussing the appropriateness of continuing to employ sexist individuals in privileged positions.
As for the match on Saturday, not the sideshow, Wolves were poor. The team worked as hard as ever but just stopped playing football. Too many hoofs forward, not enough invention and too many defensive lapses.
Some have blamed the state of the Molineux pitch on the poor passing performance but Liverpool had to play on it too and they did okay.
We finally started playing proper football after going two goals down which was too little too late. At least the whole female assistant saga has prevented anyone from looking at our performance too closely.
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Posted by MrsBromsgroveWolf on 01/24/2011
An excellent view of both the match and of the female assistant referee.
Great to hear such encouraging and level headed opinion, I am a female who too understands the offside rule and would love to challenge Keys and Gray over their comments. Sky should grow some and do the right thing, a competitor would have been leapt on and forced to bow to Sky's pressure.
Posted by Terry F. on 01/31/2011
Like the offsides rule is complicated!!!
I see linesMEN blow the offsides call almost every single day watching live or taped football. For these fools to make these sexist comments, no matter if they were joking, is both expected, yet unwelcome.
My wife is an avid golfer and every time we show up at the course, there are eye rolls about "having to paly with a woman". By the time we reach the green, they ask her if she played in college. Amazing how narrow minded most men are about the topipc women and sport. I guess it's still the neanderthal domain.
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