Say you’re on the board of a managerless club struggling near the bottom of the Football League. You and your cronies have gone through an exhaustive sifting process and now have two possible appointees to the vacant position before you. One is a coach of a national team with a record of sustained improvement over the past decade, topped off by an appearance in the final of a major championship. In addition, they are responsible for the entire national coaching setup of their country from U-15 to U-21 levels, plus they have the UEFA Pro Licence in their back pocket.
The other individual has been youth team coach for Grimsby Town. Who do you choose?
Though we probably will never know the whole truth, in October 2009 it was rumoured that Grimsby Town were considering Hope Powell as their next manager. As it transpired, they picked Neil Woods. This week Powell consolidated her position as the most successful England manager of the past ten years by guiding her charges to the 2011 World Cup with a resounding 5-2 aggregate success over Switzerland.
As I type, Grimsby are 11th in the Blue Square Bet Premier. I realise that this comparison is a mite facetious as there are a number of reasons, many totally unrelated to coaching, that have contributed to Grimsby’s decline. However, given the success that Hope Powell has enjoyed it is bewildering that nobody has offered her the chance to manage in the men’s game. Without intending any disrespect towards Grimsby, Powell’s track record should be commanding the attention of Premiership and Championship clubs.
The profile of women’s football is higher than it has ever been, unless you count its immense popularity during the 1920s (the FA put the mockers on this by banning women’s football from FA-affiliated grounds in 1921, effectively killing it off as a popular spectacle; scandalously, this ban would remain in place until 1971). This is a good thing, and the centralised contracts for England international players introduced in 2009 ensured that some of our best players can make a full-time living from the game.
It may a bridge too far to suggest that women can currently compete with men on the playing side of the professional game, but in terms of officiating, administrating and coaching the arguments employed by naysayers become increasingly fuzzier. It speaks volumes that in 2007 newspapers swarmed with the news that a woman, Jacqui Oatley, was to commentate for that most hallowed bastion of football coverage, Match of the Day.
Many other industries have adapted to the notion that discrimination due to gender is borne from ignorance and misconception. Vast swathes of the UK’s population saw fit to elect a woman to the office of Prime Minister in 1979 (and carried on voting for her) and yet nobody in the press was bold enough to suggest a woman for the job of Liverpool manager in 2010.
am not suggesting that Roy Hodgson was not a credible candidate for the post, merely pointing out that Hope Powell, Silvia Neid or Pia Sundhage have coaching pedigrees to more than match the usual names bandied about when such a vacancy arises.
I trust that nobody interprets this article as a quiet condemnation of the women’s game, a kind of footballing hinterland that everybody involved with wishes to exit as soon as is possible. This is not the case. Hope Powell does a fine job for England and I would be loathe to see her leave. It is, however, a condemnation of a specific hierarchy that is perenially blind to the possibilities of appointing a woman to manage men.
Tags: England Women, Hope Powell
It was another Powell who became the first woman to manage a senior men’s team in February 2009. Donna Powell.
Admittedly it was for one game only, against Eastleigh in the Blue Square South, but it generated a lot of interest locally and in the national media. Most of which was positive.
However, I recall a conversation with the chap at my local post office who was dead aginst the idea even though in many other areas he has a progressive outlook.
Football often lags behind other industries on issues of equality, and it is pleasing to see articles such as this challenging the status quo.