Sian Massy Works the Line

“She’s a maniac, maniac near the ball. And she’s reffing liked she’s never reffed before,” as the 80’s hit by Michael Sembello nearly had it. It’s been nearly seven years since co-commentator Ron Atkinson, thinking he was off air, explained to the commentator of a football match why he thought Ghanaian born French defender Marcel Desailly wasn’t having a very good match. His comments are too inflammatory to reproduce here, but some idea of their severity can be given by the fact that his career nosedived immediately afterwards, and has never recovered. Let’s just say that Ron Atkinson lost his job because he is what is known in some schools as a f**ing lazy, thick ninny.

I hark back to Ron, because sure enough, more television folk involved in the world of football have been caught in the trap of accidentally showing their true colours. This week it’s Andy Gray and Richard Keys of Sky Sports, though the form of discrimination is sexism this time. The Football Association had decided to field a female Assistant Referee, also known as a linesman (woman?) for Wolves versus Liverpool. So what did the dynamic duo make of Sian Massy?


Keys: Somebody better get down there and explain offside to her.

Gray: Yeah, I know. Can you believe that? A female linesman. Women don’t know the offside rule.

Keys: Course they don’t. I can guarantee you there will be a big one (offside decision) today… The game’s gone mad…



Curiously enough, they postcripted this by slating the female vice chairman (woman?) of West Ham. She had dared to complain about sexism in the game.


Keys: Did you hear charming Karren Brady this morning complaining about sexism? Do me a favour, love.


If you are the sort of person to have pictures in your dictionary, there might well be a manuscript of that conversation between irons and irradiate.

In any event, Sian Massy had a good game, correctly deciding that a Liverpool striker who put the ball in the back of the net was narrowly onside and allowed the goal to stand. It’s a pity that comments from a pair of dinosaurs will add that much more pressure on her shoulders for future matches. Men who want to be officials are a bit mad considering all the stick and pressure they’ll suffer, and, at the moment, women doubly so. In this case, though, madness is to be respected.

The view that women generally don’t understand the offside rule is an accurate one. That is not to say that they are incapable- rather that they don’t need to know it. The majority of women don’t care for football. Anyone who has no interest or expertise in something can’t be expected to know intimate details about it. Expecting them to is like expecting Simon Cowell to know how to skin, gut and cook a narwhal. But if a woman has a passion for the game, then they’re going to know the rules of the game. It’s slightly surreal having to say as such in this day and age, but men and women are on a par intellectually- in fact they do somewhat better at exams than men.

I believe that within ten years, we will have learned to look past the fact that the officials of the game will sometimes have a different arrangement of chromosomes than those playing on the pitch. Not for being female, mind, but for being substandard. Then we’ll know that they’ve arrived, and can perform at a man’s level.