A male sporting world where female coaches aren’t just welcome, they’re utterly essential
There was an interesting contrast between the sporting worlds of two stories I covered this week.
On Sunday I was at the inaugural Men’s Roller Derby World Cup, then two days later I was shuffling between Carrington and Old Trafford as Manchester United prepared to face Olympiakos in one of those “crucial” games that regularly adorn newspaper back pages.
It wasn’t the pressure United manager David Moyes was under that had me thinking – there is only one solution to that problem after all and that is to keep winning – but the main difference between him and his compatriots at the roller derby.
You see on Sunday almost all the coaches were women. Females leading men who followed their coaches instructions as they went out and put themselves through all sorts of physical pain.
Not only were women in charge of the overwhelming majority of teams, but their presence was considered essential.
Swedish team captain, Carl “Ol’ Nerdy Bastard” Martinsson, said the only chance a country new to the sport like his had of competing was with assistance from their more experienced female counterparts.
So as you walked around the Men’s Roller Derby World Cup arena in Birmingham on Sunday you would see women leading men through their warm-ups, training drills and barking orders during jams (the term for the quick interval bouts that make up the sport).
Welcome to a male sporting world where female coaches aren’t just welcome, they’re utterly essential.
A stark contrast from football where former USA coach Pia Suddinege had this exceptional answer when asked recently by Swedish magazine Magasin Danderyd whether she could lead a men’s team:
“Well, then, let me ask you a question: does it work with a female chancellor in Germany?” Suddinege responded.
“Angela Merkel (is running an entire) fucking country. Clearly it works."
Turns out it works in roller derby too.
Note: Of course it’s not just the coaches in men’s football that are an anachronism, a quick head count of the Old Trafford press conference on Tuesday revealed less than 10% of the gathered journalists were female and none of the cameramen and video journalists.