Women!

Surely there is no one who can deny that Ladies football is a fine spectacle. It’s normally a free-flowing affair with spectacular goals and mesmerising solo-runs the length of the field. The lack of a third man (woman) tackle and the ability to pick the ball straight off the ground makes it a much more watchable sport than the men’s football. The big attendance at Sunday’s game between Dublin and Tyrone must also validate my assessment. The performance of the Dublin full forward, Sinead Ahern, was something I haven’t witnessed since Peter Canavan in the early to mid 1990s. She stirred emotions in me that haven’t surfaced since the 70s I think.

Many moons ago I had spotted the marketing potential of this version long before it became a game shown live on TV. I was living in Derry City at the time and by putting messages in the bulletin and fliers in pubs, I managed to round up 30 players who would represent the first Derry side. They came from all parts of the Oak Leaf with the females from Ballinderry, Loup and Maghera being the heartiest built, matched with a ferocious temper and attitude on the field. Matches were hard to come by but the likes of Monaghan and Waterford would play us in friendlies until we found our feet. Soon we were the talk of the province and Monaghan, who’d had it all their own way for years, were delighted to see decent competition at last, just up the road.

Now you may say it was a dream job and at times it was. There was no masculine ego to massage or hangovers to contend with. No broken jaws or legs from dirty tackles in training. No backchat or attempts to overthrow you. The girls were very well behaved and eager to learn at first. Yet gradually, things began to turn sour such was my inexperience at this type of management. The first major incident occurred at the worst possible time, before the Ulster Final versus Monaghan. I had the girls well primed and actually fancied my chances of lifting the damn thing. My captain, Susan Doherty, was the jewel in the crown. She was as good as Brolly, in fact, even better as she never hid in any game at all, even against Tyrone. Susan was a strongly built girl, about 12 stone, very hairy eyebrows with a low voice. Once she was on the ball and had built up a head of steam there was no stopping her. The best in the country she had been for at least two years. I knew she would get taunted the odd time by opposing players who were making out that she was really a man from Moneymore because of the odd appearance of a hairy chin. I wasn’t sure her own team wound her up too but I had my suspicions.

Before the game I gave a rousing speech about being the first Derry side to win it and that it shouldn’t be left up to Doherty to win it; it was to be a collective effort. The error I made was in my concluding sentence. I told them that they need to match every thing Susan does, “because if there’s one thing Susan has, it’s a great big set of balls”. Unfortunately, the whole shebang broke out in fits of laughter and Doherty took to the hills. In floods of tears, she bailed up the road before the game, never to return to the area again. We lost the match by 15 points.

It was a tragic misjudgement and I told myself that from then on I’d watch everything I said in the heat of a contest so that I wouldn’t offend anyone. That didn’t last long. The following year we were in a similar situation. Susan Doherty’s presence wasn’t too harmful as a young minor made the breakthrough in sensational style during the National League. Her name was Alice Campbell. Again, she had unusual traits. Alice was a heavy-set girl in the region of 16 stone – a Geoffrey McGonigle type Ladies footballer. But no full back could handle her skill. I was told that she constantly battled with weight since her early teens and was rather sensitive about the issue. I knew to watch my turns of phrases in her company. But again, I lost the run of myself before the big game. I was giving out individual instructions on the field before the game. I wasn’t going to say anything to Alice at all as she was a natural star anyway. For some reason I did though. I told her to “throw your weight about in the full forward line. Use your weight to intimidate the full back.” I meant nothing by that but the consequences were, dire akin to Doherty’s response. The opposing players as well as our own overheard that remark and began guffawing loudly. Humiliated, Alice headed back to the changing rooms, and that was that. She never darkened my door again unfortunately. Her husband did. He was a bouncer up in Dormans. Put it like this, I couldn’t eat solid food for three weeks after his ‘visit’ I resigned immediately, out of my depth. We lost by twenty points.

So you see, managing the Ladies team is much more than getting the girls to run around a field and kick a ball as is the norm for men. Women are sensitive beings and one loose word could set off a chain reaction of tears and tantrums. It’s a frightening prospect before every big game. Crossed wires can result in an overnight stay in the hospital.