Levelling the scores

AS THE LIONESSES TRIUMPH AT EURO 2022, WESTMINSTER ALUMNAE REFLECT ON HOW FAR OPPORTUNITIES FOR WOMEN IN SPORT HAVE ADVANCED OVER THE PAST DECADE, AND HOW MUCH FARTHER THERE IS STILL TO GO.

“It is sort of lovely we’re speaking today.”

It’s the day after England’s Lionesses beat Spain and made it into the Euros’ semi-finals. Women’s football has fully captured the nation’s imagination, inspiring a generation of young girls in its wake.

Sue Thearle (Film, Video and Photographic Arts BA, 1988), alumna of BBC Sport, Match of the Day and the University of Westminster, was once one of those young girls dreaming of playing football for England. She was, briefly, the only girl on her primary school football team, in the late 1970s, after her headmaster saw her playing in the playground and decided she had to be on the team.

“And so I was, for two matches, and scored – in both of them, I might add,” she says. “But the parents of the boy who I replaced complained quite vociferously and caused a stink, so it meant that they took me out of the team. I was really outraged by that.”

This sense of outrage stayed with her, and a common thread of her career path has been breaking down barriers for women, and also sticking it – just a little bit – to the patriarchy.

“I wanted to work in places where there weren’t many women,” she says. “I don’t know why – I spotted it quite young, and it annoyed me for absolutely no reason – I think it was a sense of injustice, actually.”

More than a decade later, Sue got the chance to play on another football team – the Millwall Lionesses – and this time, she was the one who decided to leave, when her career in TV sports journalism took off.

“It was a really hard decision – it really was,” she says. “There were England players in the Millwall side, and I felt like I would really thrive there. I have no clue how far I would have gone, I genuinely don’t. But it is something – even now, all these years later – that I still think about.”

With a sports commentating career spanning two decades, journalist and presenter Kait Borsay (Multimedia Journalism (Broadcast) MA, 2016) has featured across talkRADIO, ITN, BBC radio and Sky Sports – to name a few. She also co-founded and co-presents the iconic football podcast The Offside Rule. Presented by herself, Lynsey Hooper and Hayley McQueen, The Offside Rule offers a female-centric football punditry which was largely absent when she and Lynsey, a fellow Sky Sports presenter, founded it in 2012.

“We were just fed up with feeling like we didn’t have an outlet for our voice,” Kait says. “We couldn’t see people like us expressing opinions. You could see people like us maybe presenting Sky Sports News or presenting the sports bulletin. But you couldn’t really see anyone have an authoritative opinion on the game.”

Kait Borsay

It is fitting, perhaps, that this alternative voice came through the then largely untested medium of podcasting – which many established news outlets were suspicious of at the time (one of the Sky Sports “big bosses” saw podcasts as a “passing fad”, Kait recalls). The wordplay of The Offside Rule perfectly captures women’s standing in football commentary ten years ago – though Kait says she isn’t sure everybody got this in the beginning!

“I think originally people thought The Offside Rule was a podcast about women’s football,” she laughs. “‘Oh, these three women are talking about football – it must be about women’s football! That’s the only thing that women could possibly know about, right?’”

Kait joined Westminster’s Multimedia Journalism (Broadcast) MA in 2014, when she was heavily pregnant and balanced the course part-time, around childcare (“It was probably quite a mental thing to do, now that I look back on it, but it was fun!”). At this stage, The Offside Rule already had a cult following, though – just like podcasts themselves – it has since exploded in popularity. Westminster’s MA gave Kait a lot more confidence in transitioning this “side hustle” onto the main stage.

“We have a production company,” she says. “I would have been really wary about having a production company had I not done the course – because I learnt really valuable skills about how production works, not just stuff in front of the camera.”

Three decades after Sue was ejected from her primary school football team, Olivia Ponsford (Psychology MA, 2020), was starting secondary school in Portsmouth.

A keen footballer from an early age, she was surprised to find the school had no football team at all – for girls or boys.

Olivia Ponsford

After she lobbied the PE department in year 7, the school did establish a girls’ football team – but it was headed by a science teacher. “The science teacher was amazing,” Olivia says. “But ultimately there was only so much she could do. The team

was poorly resourced because all the funding was poured into boys’ rugby. I’m just trying to think, it was about ten years ago, I’d say. Now we’re looking at it in a completely different time.”

Olivia also dreamed of becoming a professional footballer.

“That was honestly the goal,” she says. “And I wonder – genuinely – if I had more confidence and there was more funding – genuinely, where things could have gone.”

After completing her Psychology MA at Westminster in 2020, Olivia spent two years as the Vice President of Activities at the University’s Students’ Union. Throughout her tenure, which has just ended, she has made it a central focus to encourage all students identifying as women to embrace sports at all levels. From participation in the national This Girl Can initiative, to introducing women-only gym sessions.

“It actually started with just a women-only area and we wanted to make sure that this included anyone that identifies as a woman,” Olivia says of the women-only sessions at Westminster’s Regent Street Gym. “Because we know that gym intimidation is a major issue for women particularly. It’s a lot harder for women to step into the gym because of confidence – especially in maledominated spaces.”

The Vice-Chancellor, Dr Peter Bonfield (who Olivia says was “amazing” on the issue), not only supported this scheme but pushed it to the next level. As a result, there are now two hour-long sessions per week where the entire gym is reserved exclusively for those identifying as women.

Olivia’s own past experience of playing football also inspired the introduction of sports hijabs last year, as part of the This Girl Can initiative. “Someone came up to me in my team I was captaining and said, ‘No one here looks like me’” she recalls. “She was a Muslim female – she was very clear that we weren’t being as inclusive as possible and as welcoming as possible. So, I wanted to take that into my role.”

Finances are also exclusionary – particularly for a student body like Westminster’s, with such a mix of socio-economic backgrounds. To tackle this, Westminster removed the joining fee for all sports teams last year. The University has also begun offering a range of free drop-in activities and brought in new funding and support for elite athletes.

“It’s for everyone but it really gives our female athletes a chance to get funded,” Olivia says. “We give them all the support – psychological support and physical support – to get them to the elite place. And for some people, it’s made such a difference in their competitions.

“I think we are on a different path to where we were about ten years ago,” she adds. “And hopefully younger generations who are joining universities now can see that.”

Whether you’re playing sport or have the audacity to show your face on television and talk about it, the path has rarely been easy and the reception is not always welcoming.

“Looking back there were just no women,” Sue says. “I mean, I used to go to press boxes and I would be the only woman – it just irritated me then. I suppose it was quite uncomfortable.

Sue Thearle

Most of the chaps there were very nice. Some were resistant – there’s no doubt – and didn’t feel like you needed to be there. And they would quiz you relentlessly about your football knowledge. And after a while they would have to go ‘Oh, well she knows football.’”

“I don’t think we were deliberately being marginalised,” Kait says.

“But by association, by continuing with a mostly all-male line-up for various things, women were totally not getting the opportunities or they were there as a plus-one. They were there to look good next to the guy. They were there because people who listened to the show or watched this channel quite liked to look at an attractive female. It was just all wrong. It was all wrong.”

Though there is still a lot of work to be done, the influx of respected female voices pouring into sports journalism is a whole new world, Sue and Kait both agree. And the rise of women’s football is a crowning achievement on this.

“Women’s Euros are absolutely shaking everything up,” Olivia says, adding: “It’s extremely inspiring – I think empowering is probably the word. Just knowing that actually in the future generation there could be more equality. We’re still a long way off from equal pay and things like that in football. But if you just look at the coverage now, it’s so different to ten years ago. And actually, I think there are now more visible role models for children growing up and I think it’s an incredible time, really. I mean I’m in love with the Euros, it’s great!” She laughs.

Kait feels women’s football has also broadened opportunities for female sports commentators who were traditionally overlooked.

“The rise of women’s football definitely has helped, because there are now more platforms for women to have knowledge within the game,” she says.

The mainstream appeal of women’s football is an important factor in this, she says, as it avoids simply pigeonholing women.

“I’m glad it’s not just women presenting women’s football and I’m glad that women are presenting men’s football – I think it all kind of worked together.”

Since completing her MA, Kait has given her time to a variety of the University’s alumni activities – including the Westminster Working Cultures Programme.

“I think it’s my responsibility, as an older female broadcaster, to make sure that young students, young women and men, are given access to advice that I may not have had,” she says.

Kait says she always feels inspired by the drive and creativity of Westminster’s current students.

“I get something out of it as well,” she says, adding: “It kind of gives me lots of encouragement about where the world is going and where our young people are going. But it also fills me full of ideas and interesting perspectives and broadens my view of the world as well.”

So what advice would Kait and Sue give to women trying to break into sports journalism?

“I’d say that there are loads more opportunities for you now – which is great! – and so take them,” Kait says. “Think about getting yourself out there. I mean, if you’re applying for jobs and you’re not getting anything back, start to create your own content. It’s such a predictable thing for me to say but it really helps. Go out and film stuff outside Chelsea, go out and do podcasting, go out and grab some interviews.” “Tenacity is the key – and persistence,” Sue says. “And a little bit of a thick skin – by having a thick skin what I don’t mean is being treated badly. That’s never OK! I don’t mean like that. I mean you will have setbacks.”

The Offside Rule has a female writers’ mentorship for female journalism graduates keen to pursue a career in sports journalism. Since its 2020 inception, mentees have gone on to work for EFL, CNN and the Athletic. The opportunities are there, Kait says, but the competition is fierce!

“You still need to be plucky,” she says. “I don’t think anyone’s just going to be handed a brilliant broadcasting job.”