The touchline is the best place for a woman

Magnificent schadenfreude being shown by all and sundry over the case of Sky Sports presenters Richard Keys and Andy Gray and their off-mic comments about how useless woman are. This is at least partly because Keys and Gray are genuinely awful and nobody liked them very much anyway. And their off-mic comments were precisely what you might have expected from them. You wouldn’t have expected to overhear Gray saying, for example, “how refreshing to see a woman running the line today – it is about time that football, like so many of our institutions, showed a commitment to equality, diversity and inclusiveness. Incidentally, Richard, you must try to catch Marton Csokas in Twelfth Night at the Cottesloe. It’s had some bad reviews, but his Orsino is fabulous.”

Now the liberal press is calling for more women refs, more women in the board room, maybe women managers. Fine, fine. No objection. But please do not expect us to watch women actually playing the game. It is like watching crippled flamingos chasing a balloon on ice. They are absolutely useless at the sport.