Ditch playground antics and start setting example
Men are their own worst enemies at times.
I’m racking my brain to think of a time in 20 years of playing women’s football when a single challenge sparked the kind of 20-man mass brawl we saw at Easter Road in midweek.
Hand on heart, I can’t think of even one.
What is it about football that anyone thinks that’s a legitimate reaction to a single challenge – albeit a bad one – and that you can run 20, 30, even 40 yards to get involved in a fight that wasn’t your own?
You can’t tell me there’s any less passion flowing in a rugby game but you’d never see that happen.
It looks appalling for our game. If you’re taking your kids to a match or encouraging them to watch on TV and that’s what they see, what is it exactly they’re supposed to be looking up to?
It’s not anything to be proud of if you’re trying to create a family environment at your game.
I’ll confess to laughing at the use of the phrase “square-go” when I heard it on the radio – but only because it’s an absolute joke to hear grown men use it.
I’m a teacher. I expect to hear it in the playground from our kids, not from guys old enough to be their parents or grandparents.
But despite the dark humour of it, the serious point is still one that has to be made – and on that front football has a lot to learn.
I’d be like Scooby-Doo if something like what happened between Hibs and Morton kicked off near me. You wouldn’t see me for cartoon dust going in the opposite direction.
And it’s not as if we don’t see the odd really bad tackle in the women’s game.
But the idea of that level of confrontation in the wake of it just doesn’t compute.
Maybe that’s the difference between men and women – all the testosterone flying around. We’d be far more likely to moan about it in the dressing room than act on it there and then on the park.
We’re all talk. Feuds are probably settled quicker in the men’s game, although we’re far more disciplined.
As an Ayrshire girl, I’m no shrinking violet. I’ve seen my share of rammies on the park.
My brother-in-law Chris Strain manages Kilwinning Rangers and played junior football for years. I could write a book about his exploits. In the Ayrshire juniors what we saw last Wednesday night would happen once a match.
But at the top end of the game they have to understand how it looks from the outside – how it looks to sponsors, to kids.
I don’t want my kids to think that level of posturing and rammying is acceptable for them to take on the pitch because like it or not they watch these things like hawks.
There’s maybe too much of an assumption that everyone in football has to be a role model.
However, you do have a responsibility to the younger generation coming through to set standards.
You have to understand that at clubs of their size they’re going to be seen on TV and that kids are watching them.
Parents shouldn’t have to turn to other sports for examples of how important discipline is in a team environment but sadly they may have no choice.