THE WOMAN WHO TOOK ON THE PFA AND WON
22 years ago Gordon Taylor told Rachel Anderson she was banned from an awards dinner. Her crime? Being a woman...
On Sunday evening at the Grosvenor House Hotel, Gordon Taylor will hold court at the Professional Footballers’ Association’s annual awards dinner.
He will applaud as one of the six female nominees come to the stage, with Manchester City’s Steph Houghton and Arsenal’s Vivianne Miedema among the favourites to be crowned PFA Women’s Players’ Player of the Year.
One wonders if Taylor will pause for reflection. This year marks the 20th anniversary of a landmark court battle that saw the PFA defeated in the High Court by football agent Rachel Anderson. Taylor’s aim? To stop women attending the PFA’s annual awards dinner.
All these years on, Anderson’s bemusement remains. ‘I did not think they would change unless they were dragged into it,’ she insists. ‘ So that’s what I had to do.’
Taylor and his organisation have been swamped by allegations over the past year. While Taylor rakes in an annual salary of £2.2million, it has been claimed his union has failed some of its members who needed it most. Taylor finally announced his intention to step down last month.
Yet the most clear-cut example of Taylor’s tyranny came between 1997 and 1999. Anderson was at the heart of it all, as Taylor was shamed in the House of Lords, Downing Street and the High Court.
The battle began at the PFA dinner in 1997, to which Anderson had been invited as a guest of her client, the former West Ham defender Julian Dicks. She was stopped by Brendon Batson, then the PFA’s deputy chief executive, on her way downstairs.
‘I thought he was winding me up,’ says Anderson, now 61. ‘I’ve got five brothers. What can they show me that I hadn’t
seen before? ‘But Brendon said, “You really can’t come in. It’s men only”. I thought, “Yeah, yeah, yeah”, but he was serious.’
Batson, a key figure in the launch of footall’s anti- discrimation charity Kick It Out, remains a PFA trustee.
‘It’s in safe hands, that organisation,’ winces Anderson. ‘But Brendon was one of the first black footballers. I cannot imagine what he must have gone through. So to have that hypocrisy... he said it was different.
‘I was fuming. The awards were televised on Sky. I just thought, “How can it be men only?” It wasn’t a stag do.
‘Michael Owen was the young player of the year. I knew that his mum traipsed back and forth to training, and even she wouldn’t be allowed in. But the local baker in a tuxedo could wander in just because he was a man. I phoned my father and he was furious and said I can’t let it go. I thought, “It is only a chicken dinner. Do I really care?” Dad pointed out that if I accepted it, it would give the impression that there are other places I should not be allowed into.’
There were other forbidden haunts for women in football. ‘Absolutely,’ Anderson nods. ‘ Boardrooms on matchday, even at top-six clubs. I could be in there negotiating a deal during the day but in the evening, the whole club would have come tumbling down if a female stepped foot in there. Celtic was one of those clubs.’
Anderson is a smart woman, fiercely intelligent and extremely savvy. A mother of two, she walked into a man’s world and blew it apart. Her background was as a journalist and then in marketing with major brands. Her venture into football, becoming the first woman to be accredited by FIFA as an agent, began on a course to become an aerobics teacher. She met Dicks’s wife and told her what she thought he was doing wrong.
She says: ‘His wife kept going home saying, “Rachel said this, Rachel said that...” and he said, “OK, if you’re so clever, then you look after me”.
‘ Off the pitch, Julian was a pussycat. The first time I went to his home, his wife opened the door and Julian was sitting in the dog basket. He loves animals. He had twin girls. He needed to show the dog who was top dog. He was in the dog basket, then the girls were.
‘Another time, we were driving to see a sponsor and he saw an injured bird in the road, so he decided to take it to a vet instead of going to the appointment. The flipping bird died, but he had that soft side to him. He did not suffer fools on the pitch.’
neither did Anderson off the field. On her father’s advice, Anderson stepped up. Dicks invited her again in 1998 but this time Anderson wrote to Taylor before the dinner. He responded by suggesting there would be no room for male players if women started to attend.
Taylor’s letter read: ‘I am sorry for any embarrassment caused last year but if you had asked us or any player would tell you the PFA Awards Dinner has always been a men-only evening for the 25 years since its inception and the PFA Management Committee have made a decision that it should remain so.’
Dicks (above) was incensed, replying: ‘I can only describe the reasons you give for her exclusion as the last whimper of a dinosaur.’
Tony Banks, then the Minister for Sport, refused to attend. The Equal Opportunities Commission supported Anderson’s case. The issue was raised in the House of Lords. Prime Minister Tony Blair wrote to Anderson, too. The case went to the High Court and Anderson estimates the PFA’s costs reached between £200,000 and £300,000.
Does Anderson believe Taylor when he claims his committee made the decision? ‘It was Gordon’s will,’ she says. ‘Or the other members of that committee lied to me. I spoke to some of them. In fact, one or two contacted me to be supportive.’
There has never been an apology. oapology. ‘ Oh no. It was his way or no way. He said point blank to me that his members did not want me there, which I don’t bebelieve was true. He couldn’t cocome up with anyone (specific). I spoke to many members and nonobody felt like that.
‘He wasn’t spending his money. He was spending his players’ momoney. I said to him, “You’re gogoing to lose. Why don’t we just calcall it quits? You pay your fees, I pay my fees, I won’t go this year, bubut I will next year by which time thithis will have died down”.
‘He said, “no. It’s not what my members want. It’s always been men-only and they want it to stay men-only”. It just wasn’t true.’
Eventually, Anderson won £7,500 in damages from the PFA. But Taylor still did not give up. writing to members in late 1999 to suggest they make the dinner a ‘private event’ so it would not be governed by the Sex Discrimination Act.
The PFA released a statement yesterday, disputing Anderson’s claims. A PFA spokesman said: ‘This is not a version of events we recognise. The PFA prides itself on being an open and inclusive organisation and we are immensely proud of the work we have done to promote gender equality in the sport.’
On what the future holds for the PFA, Anderson says: ‘Things are changing now but I don’t think the PFA has fulfilled its job because there is so much money in its coffers and so many players who are practically destitute.
‘I’d like to see younger people involved as decision-makers. I’d like to see diversity on the board, one or two women, dare I say it. The world has changed and you have to change with it. I don’t think they necessarily have.’
And will she attend on Sunday evening? ‘I have not been invited this year. I have not been to the event since. But the first year after I won, two women went. They phoned me and thanked me. That made me proud.’
I was fuming. I thought: ‘How can it be men-only? It’s not a stag do’
‘Dicks called her exclusion the last whimper of a dinosaur’