Patronising - who me? says Guardian sub-editor

This week, this blog has had some new readers. Aside from the obvious attraction of my top-notch, cliché-free writing, I think this may be due to recent increase in interest in sportswomen as a result of international successes, Guardian articles and government minister comments that women's sports are underrepresented in the mainstream media.

They have asked questions about equal opportunities and the funding that goes into under 18's sports for boys and girls. Apparently, sports are excluded from equal opportunities legislation - though most sports bodies purport to have an interest in promoting their sports for both sexes. I'm going to take a look into this to see if I can find anything of interest.

Certainly it's odd that the FA has done so little with women's football even though it's the biggest women's team sport in the country. John Birch wrote that one in 15 rugby players (in the UK I think) is a woman - but the women's pages of the RFU website are tucked away in a remote corner of the home page.

Despite this modest peak of blog interest in the subject of women in sport, I don't expect a sea change in media interest in the foreseeable future. Attempts to redress the balance are a long term goal. A warning shot was fired by the Guardian's sports editors choice of letter in today's sports section:

Female fuss is short-sighted
That live coverge of the Women's World Cup was ignored by the BBC is a
perverse kind of gender equality as the BBC has no live coverage of cricket at all. The shame is that a fuss is only made when it's England and they are successful. Anyway, not to worry, the BBC has secured the rights to show the Boat Race. Does that include the women's Boat Race by any chance? Graham Ullathorne, Derbyshire

What the…? And breathe. To everyone, their opinion. My opinion is that the sub-ed's headline is patronising and designed to alienate women who want to read about women in sport. It ignores the fact that there are also men who want to read about women in sport.

Aside from my past disappointments at not having my own letters published, it's interesting that the Guardian's sports editor (it takes so long to hunt down news about sports women that I have no time to look his name up), selects a letter that focuses the lack of coverage on the BBC. Sportswomen are underrepresented across all media not just the BBC. I think he's trying to pass the buck.

Graham Ullathorne is also wrong to suggest there's only been a fuss about England's sportwomen when they are successful. I've been talking to people about this issue long before I started blogging. I've been frustrated at the lack of women's rugby news ever since I played the game at university. And anyway - what the hell is wrong about expecting the media to report sporting successes such as ICC World Cup and Six Nations Rugby particularly when these events easily make the cut when men are playing (and losing)? Isn't success a creditable feature of many front page sports stories?

Recently, I wrote to ask the BBC about its sports editorial policy and why it shows so little sustained coverage of leading women's sports such as football, rugby, hockey and netball. As I wrote in an earlier post about this:

Apparently, the answer lies in the BBC's need to cover minority sports.
Mmm. Not sure they are doing a great job of this. It also begs the question,
before covering minority sports wouldn't it be a good idea to cover sports
played by a representation of more than 50% of the UK population?

The Corporation also said it needs to get good value for money out of its
deals to cover major tournaments. Maybe with the spare air time created by the
ECB's latest Twenty 20 fiasco, it can find time to cover women's cricket? I
shall not be holding my breath.

No doubt, someone can point out that my Twenty20 analysis is naïve. But as Deborah Tydings pointed out, the Guardian knows all sorts of stuff about cricketing venue and broadcasting issues - it dedicates plenty of space to the subject. It should be possible to commission an informed sports business journalist to identify a strategy for the media to improve the gender balance in sports broadcasting and journalism - and at the same time, increase the total size of the audience and readership for sporting events.

We won, we won!

"England Women retained their RBS 6 Nations crown on Saturday at London Welsh RFC, and in doing so became the first women’s team to ever record four back-to-back Six Nations titles." Writes Julia Hutton on the Rugby Football Union site.

It's possible to track through the Google news links to see how Julia Hutton's official release has been reworked by the BBC and other broadcasters and papers.

This is really exciting news. This - and the ICC World Cup win for England's cricketers and world records in swimming - means that England has the sporting and coaching talent required to achieve at a world class level.

The achievement of winning four times in a row shows that even under pressure this is a squad that delivers strong results. In the run up to the tournament team members also won the San Diego Rugby Sevens.

It seems a shame to me that men in football, rugby and cricket don't think they have anything to learn from this. Yet that's what journalists seem to be saying when they declare that there's no market for women in sport.

To give the team the credit they deserve - here's a roll call of the winning team:

1 Rochelle Clark (Blaydon), 2 Amy Garnett (Saracens), 3 Sophie Hemming (Bristol), 4 Rebecca Essex (Richmond), 5 Joanna McGilchrist (Wasps), 6 Karen Jones (Richmond), 7 Gemma Sharples (Worcester), 8 Catherine Spencer (C) (Bristol), 9 Amy Turner (Richmond), 10 Katy McLean (VC) (Darlington Mowden Park Sharks), 11 Fiona Pocock (Richmond), 12 Alice Richardson (Richmond), 13 Emily Scarratt (Lichfield), 14 Katherine Merchant (Worcester), 15 Charlotte Barras (Saracens). Replacements: 16 Claire Purdy (Wasps), 17 Katy Storie (Blaydon), 18 Sarah Hunter (Lichfield), 19 Sarah Beale (Lichfield), 20 Georgina Rozario (Plymouth Albion), 21 Kimberley Oliver (Bristol), 22 Francesca Matthews (Richmond)

Tries: Merchant (4), Barras (3), Pocock, Spencer, Beale (2), Hunter.
Conversions: McLean (6)
Penalties:
Substitutions: Oliver for Scarratt (38), Matthew for Pocock (55), Hemming for Storie, Purdy for Clark, Rozario for Turner (57), Beale for Essex, Hunter for Jones

Fixture list:

Feb 7th England v Italy 13.30 London Welsh RFC WON 69-13
Feb 14th Wales v England 13.00 Taffs Wells RFC, Cardiff LOST 16-15
Feb 27th Ireland v England 18.30 St. Mary’s RFC, Dublin WON 29-13
March 15th England v France 13.30 London Welsh RFC WON 52-7
March 21st England v Scotland 13.30 London Welsh RFC WON 72 -3

Deborah Tydings is not a lone voice in the wilderness

I've been busy. Which for someone interested in women in sport, means I'm completely out of the loop. If I was interested in men in sport, being busy wouldn't prevent me keeping up with the latest events. My daily paper would drip feed me all sorts of interesting news from football, rugby, cricket, athletics - even what brand of underwear Swedish golfers are wearing (Bjorn Borg, don't you know).

But for women, it's been a struggle. This week, some news from women in sport has crept in to both the main section and sports pages of the Guardian. Naturally, at least one of these stories did involve a football player's girlfriend (another piece of hawt news from David Hills).

One story was about breaking swimming world records. Jo Jackson - the excitable woman who moments after Rebecca Adlington won Olympic gold, appealed to the Queen to make her [Rebecca Adlington] a Dame - broke a world record for the 400m freestyle in an astonishing race against Rebecca. This story even made it to the front page of the Sports section. I nearly fell off my chair.

Gratifyingly, these articles discussed the onerous training schedules these women put themselves through. The pressures of media interest (in makeovers and Jimmy Choos) is a big distraction from training. It would be healthier if the media interest came from the sports pages rather than Sunday supplements and Heat magazine.

The other big story didn't make big headlines. As ever, I haven't got a freaking clue why not. England's cricketers won the ICC World Cup. The England Cricket Board have put a significant lot of effort into promoting women's cricket, but apart from two or three articles in the Guardian you can be excused for not knowing about it.

As the wonderful Deborah Tydings of Teddington, Middlesex puts it in her letter to The Guardian today:

"Fantastic, England won the ICC World Cup. Brilliant! After reporting last week on the low profile of sport for women in the UK, why wasn't this news at least on the front page of the Sport section? I eventually found it on page 11. It was buried in the main news section, but only briefly tucked away in the corner, dwarfed by the IPL venue problems. We have some great positive femal role models winning a World Cup and nothing changes. Shame on you."

Quite how Deborah got her letter published I don't know. Clearly she is a woman of influence and not to be messed with. I hope The Guardian takes note. Usually it's a trail blazing newspaper, but on this issue it's proving to be intransigent.

Now, I'm going to find out how England's women have been doing in the six nations. Any comments enlightening me on the latest in basketball, rugby and hockey will be appreciated.

Real life continues to get in the way of blogging. That's normal and how it should be. During the down time, I've been mulling over the content of this post.

Top of the list, I had to take a look and find out what the FA had to say about Birchwood Juniors mixed team of 12 year old footballers. Would the girls on this team of 12 year olds be allowed by the FA to play in their local league? The answer, happily, is yes. The FA admitted to making an error and this experimental mixed-team will continue to play. The BBC reported this decision, but newspapers left many of us in suspense.

It's not all fantastic news from the BBC though. I asked about its criteria for sports coverage and why it shows so little sustained coverage of leading women's sports such as football, rugby, hockey and netball.

Apparently, the answer lies in the BBC's need to cover minority sports. Mmm. Not sure they are doing a great job of this. It also begs the question, before covering minority sports wouldn't it be a good idea to cover sports played by a representation of more than 50% of the UK population?

The Corporation also said it needs to get good value for money out of its deals to cover major tournaments. Maybe with the spare air time created by the ECB's latest Twenty 20 fiasco, it can find time to cover women's cricket? I shall not be holding my breath.

The BBC's response doesn't convince me that it's looking at this issue with any seriousness, but there are some events that help redress the balance, like the winter sports programme.

Another good story from the past week is about Lindsey Vonn - now the most successful female American skier in the World Cup. Recently, the Guardian published a photo but didn't find space to explain that she was on track to win her 19th World Cup win - the Super G.

Of course, I've had to look up what Super G means. It's an event combining downhill and giant slalom. While on a wide course, there are fewer turns than in slalom racing so it's faster. Competitors get an hour for 'visualisation' of the course but aren't allowed to practice at full speed on the whole of the course. This lends further uncertainty, risk and excitement to the event. Typical speeds are up to 60 miles per hour. (Credits for the information go to Wikipedia).

Winter sports go beyond regular fitness. They call for a dare devil spirit and a determination to 'experience' something beyond sport. It's something that can be said for any sport that involves battling against the elements - windsurfing, canoeing, kayaking and ... sailing.

Finally - general awe and applause for Dee Caffari who completed a world first this month - she's the first woman to have sailed both ways around the world, non-stop each time. What took 178 days in 2005, was a lot quicker with the wind behind her. After 99 days, she sailed back to the UK with a broken mast. She even took time to look for a fellow competitor who had broken his leg. Because that's the sort of thing you do when you are all at sea together.

And now... I'm out of blogging time. As I race to the end of another short post, I find that I am still writing without any structure or plan. It's one of the reasons why I bewail the lack of good writing on women's sports - I want to read it, because I can't write it myself.

The invisible sportswoman

I spent the first few weeks of the year monitoring The Guardian sports pages for coverage of women's sport. It's been demoralising. I find myself reaching for the sports pages to search for some decent coverage only to be disappointed.

12 Feb - Golf (R&A merit Olympic snub?) 12 Feb - Golf (Michelle Wie rejoins LPGA tour) 11 Feb - Basketball (coach quits as GB women are relegated) 11 Feb - Tennis (Jankovic hits back at Federer) 6 Feb - Skiing (Lindsay Vonn - photo only) 2 Feb - Football (FA disorganisation) 2 Feb - Tennis (Laura Robson) 1 Feb - Tennis (Laura Robson) 1 Feb - Tennis (Serena Williams) 26 Jan - Football (Tony Leighton) 26 Jan - Tennis (Serena Williams) 25 Jan - Tennis (Serena Williams) 24 Jan - Tennis (Laura Robson) 20 Jan - Tennis

Tennis fairs best of all. Perhaps because the prize money is substantial? Certainly the game has some astounding personalities in the Williams sisters, Jankovic and I always like reading about Lindsay Davenport. (Incidentally, I just discovered that Lindsay had planned to retire following this year's Australian Open, but had to withdraw from the event when she became pregnant with her second child).

Golf has inspired some good articles from Lawrence Donegan. But then, I've been a fan of Lawrence's ever since I read his book about caddying - Four iron in the soul. It would be good to see him writing more frequently about the European tour. Laura Davies' recent success at the Women's Australian Open was notably under-reported.

Lawrence also considered whether golf should be taken out of the Olympic Games for 2012 in order to press the R&A to take a more inclusive stance on women's membership. I can't imagine the International Olympic Committee will go so far as that, but it's a relief to see someone raising the question in the Sports pages.

Other than that, press coverage tends to focus on the bad news. There's zilch coverage of women's football, rugby, cricket or basketball except when male coaches make a career move.

The lack of sustained coverage seems so damned lazy. If the rest of the paper - and indeed the BBC website - excluded women to such a degree we'd be in uproar. Why aren't people more upset by this exclusion?

Jo Scott: diva clinics 09

Following my west country surfing post, I thought I'd catch up with Jo Scott. Previously with Club Vass, Jo is now taking her Diva Clinics to more glamorous locations.

If you are looking for an action holiday - where it's as easy to leave your partner at home or take one with you - you won't find much better than this one.


I've met Jo a number of times and she's an excellent instructor - enthusiastic and inspiring. If you already know how to windsurf, she'll help you realise your potential.

Laura Davies claims the Women's Australian Open

It pays to keep an eye on English women in sport.

Laura Davies - you know, the one who was all so disappointed with how her Australian tournaments were turning out - won the Women's Australian Open in Melbourne on Sunday 15 February.

By keeping an eye on the leaderboard she played an apparently erratic game (but hell, it sounds exciting) and finished on a bogey. Her unfortunate competitor, Tania Elesogui, put herself under unnecessary pressure and was overly aggressive on a six-metre putt.

It's a fabulous result and one that I'm very pleased I took a moment to look up. The Guardian could have reported this in today's paper - but only got the story up an hour ago. This is the sort of story they should have had Lawrence Donegan writing about.