‘Scenes we don’t like to see’ only raise game’s profile
Potter v Sadiku the type of added drama that helps sell women’s sport
OF the many myths that circulate around football, the greatest has to be the pearl-clutching conviction that comes when there is any hint of aggro at a game. “This is not what we want to see,” is often trotted out as a much-loved party line as government summits and back-page headlines loom into view.
The reality, of course, is that a bit of feistiness is eagerly lapped up by all and sundry.
So, the minute that Rangers manager Jo Potter tutted and shook her head and made clear her frustration at a Celtic huddle and round of lingering high-fives that delayed kickoff at Hampden last weekend by a few seconds, the stage was set for a little bit of needle.
That Rangers had the last laugh with a performance that left Celtic floundering – and without a solitary shot on target – gave Potter full licence to enjoy the last laugh.
“When you’ve got to use tactics like that it says more about your mindset,” she said.
An extra grenade was flung in postmatch with a little dig at Rangers’ superior fitness levels, so lighting the fuse in a week where the ill feeling simmered between both camps.
Her counterpart, Celtic manager Elena Sadiku, showed a firm grasp of how the off-field game works when she duly responded in kind. She suggested all criticism of the huddle, Celtic’s much celebrated and longstanding pre-match ritual, was about the optics; about Potter wanting to look tough, to be precise.
“I think she just wants to have something to say and be tough about it. I don’t care what she’s saying. If she says that’s our mindset then she can just think that because I couldn’t care less. Let her talk.”
There is a feeling that some of the less savoury elements of the men’s game should not be allowed to permeate the women’s game, a topic that is particularly prescient around the games between Celtic and Rangers and some of the toxicity that surrounds the fixture on the men’s side.
But ultimately football is based on rivalry and on grudges and stories, grievances and successes. Of petty oneupmanship and passed-down anecdotes. The collective within a support is about a shared history, a shared journey. It offers a community and a sense of belonging, of identity. It is why the numbers 1-9-6-7 still feature in PIN numbers and can stop a piercing house alarm 57 years down the line.
The women’s game doesn’t have that history. There is a reason for that – the game was banned for many years and has had to fight hard for its place, its coverage and its cultural footing. It is still fighting for all of these things.
So when there are the kind of barbs that bounced around last week it is no bad thing. It keeps it interesting, it keeps it topical, it gives it airtime and newspaper space. It offers a bit of spice, however puerile, and keeps things ticking along.
It also ensures that tomorrow’s fixture at Broadwood, where the teams meet at noon, is a game that offers intrigue for many reasons, and not just about the outcome..
IF Celtic and Rangers did not quite see eye-to-eye last week on the topics above, there was a commonality as both reflected on the poor numbers at high-profile games across recent weeks.
Last weekend’s semi-final at Hampden drew in fewer than 3000 supporters, a desperate return that was all the more galling given that neither male team were in action so there was no overlap.
Rangers midfielder Rachel Rowe, who has been head and shoulders the best player in the SWPL this season, asked why that was and wanted to know where all the fans were, why they were not turning out.
It was a sentiment echoed by Sadiku, the Celtic manager, when she suggested that the Parkhead support have a responsibility to turn out and support her side as they look to make history for the club by winning their first title.
Both remarks prompted all sorts of comment when they featured on social media websites. The criticism centred on the perception of a lack of quality within the game while there were the many Joey Bartons who bucked against the women’s game “being forced down their throat”.
It would be an easy wager to correlate the comments with the number of those who had actually been to a game. And, furthermore, for those of us who have long worked within the men’s game, the criticism from south of the border is that the Scottish league is a backwater where the standard is so poor that it looks like a different sport being played given the disparity in quality.
What Scottish football has lacked in quality it has made up for in excitement at times.
The women’s game can offer the same. With Celtic and Rangers tied on points going into the last four games of the season, tomorrow’s game offers much in the way of that.
For all those many purists out there, the women’s finale will have a few folk on the edge of their seats.
IT has been quite the season for Brian Graham. Nominated for Championship Player of the Year and SWPL Manager of the Year for his job with Partick Thistle’s women’s team, he could make a bit of history tonight.
All will be revealed at the PFA dinner but regardless of the outcome, Graham has firmly taken the women’s team to considerable heights this season.