Mike Newell, manager of Luton Town certainly created an embarrassment for himself when he decried the efforts of the assistant referee after his side's defeat by QPR.
It wasn't that he disagreed with the actions of the assistant referee but the fact that she was a woman. 'Tokenism,' he called it, 'from politically-correct idiots'. If you listened to some of the football radio phone-ins, it is clear that there are still a number of football fans who believe that football is a man's game only. It has to be said, that until relatively recently this was a view also held by the Football Association.
The fact is, women's football is as old as the men's game. There are engravings showing women playing Tsu Chu, an ancient Chinese version of football, 200 years BC. In this country, organised football as we know it, started in 1863 when the FA was formed and introduced laws that prohibited violent and ungentlemanly conduct. This also made the game more acceptable for women to play.
The first recorded women's match in England was
in 1895 but, as this was a North versus South encounter, it is obvious that women had been playing the game for some time. In the early 1900s a woman's match attracted 53,000 to Goodison Park but in 1921, the Football Association banned women from playing on the grounds of affiliated clubs which effectively destroyed the game. Their reason? The FA Council 'expressed strong opinion that the game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged'.
The truth is that they felt that the success of the women's game was detrimental to the view that football was a masculine sport. The English Ladies FA, later renamed English
Women's FA, kept the game alive by playing on rugby and park pitches unaffiliated to the FA. In 1971 the FA removed their ban on women playing on affiliated clubs' grounds, which allowed for the expansion of the game but it was not until 1993 that the
women's game became 'legal' when it came under the jurisdiction of the FA.
Women referees weren't permitted to officiate in the men's game until the first
Sex Discrimination Act of 1975 forced the FA's hand. Whereas women footballers can't play in men's leagues for obvious reasons, there is no such restriction for women referees but it means that they have to be judged exactly the same way as male referees. There are no concessions for being female if they desire to reach the top. Like all referees they have to start on the local parks and then work their way up through the various levels of leagues, first running the line and then moving into the middle. The promotion pyramid we call it.
At every stage they are appraised and marked by assessors and clubs, and they have to take further examinations on the laws or as they make they way up the pyramid, pass fitness tests. At each level the fitness test gets harder. The most successful woman referee locally has been Alison Chapman. I came across a report of a senior men's match that Alison refereed, which gave Alison 10 out of 10, so she obviously had no problem is controlling games at that level but it was the fitness tests that proved difficult.
Obviously this has not been a problem for Amy Rayner, the assistant
referee who upset Newell. A footballer herself as a girl, she started refereeing at 14 and has progressed through the pyramid. When she is not running the line on the Football League she is refereeing on the Conference. Like all referees she is judged solely on her performance - on the decisions she makes. Mike Newell may have been frustrated at
losing the match but it was hard work, competence and experience that put Amy Rayner behind that flag, not tokenism.
Dick Sawdon Smith
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© R Sawdon Smith 2006