First transgender manager ignites row by signing biologically male goalkeeper for women’s team

What an arsehole.

I walked away from the game after being called a transphobic bigot for raising concerns about fairness and safety by a man who liked to style himself as a saviour of women's football, but who let self-IDing transwomen play and told us it was our duty to support them.

Thanks, that chimes with what I hear and read.

The FA are having a big push to train women coaches - I think they are doing courses for women only. Actual women. Big-name players are getting their pro licences under this scheme.

So, if they get hired, that should increase the pool of top-level ex-players. I think it's probably a lot harder for a club to assess a woman coach because of her comparative lack of experience, the huge disparity in resources at the clubs she may have coached at, etc, and I wonder if some clubs play safe and just appoint a more experienced man, who may or may not be as talented.

The increase in the size of the talent pool cannot come too soon for me - when I see male coaches celebrating I often think of men showing off their dogs or bikes to each other. Some of the male coaches are absolute gems, I'm sure, but I prefer to see women coaches in women's team sports.

I was involved with women's football in the UK for 30 years and there are very few female coaches. Of the dozen or so coaches I had over that time, only one was female, though I think it's getting better now.

I couldn't say whether the dearth is due to fewer women being involved with the game or other things putting them off, but its probably a bit of both. A friend said she found it difficult to be taken seriously when she did her coaching training about a decade ago.

I preferred a female coach. I ended up doing a bit of coaching myself just before I retired and the team appreciated that dynamic. I won't list the frequent challenges with male coaches but, let's just say, from my experience there seem to be plenty who get into it as a power trip or to pull women.

Thanks for the update. I've been wondering what happened next.

Thanks. Maybe if Blair spends a bit more time on Blair's work Blair's research on transgender sport science will be of a higher standard

no, I don't know. AFAIK, BH didn't return to the team after the spat in early September. no idea what happened. possible that it's very common at this sort of level, eg if players' work and so on gets in the way.

Apologies, my post shifted somewhat to implying there were none at all at the end. I'm glad to learn that's nonsense, but there should be more im-relatively uninformed-o.

And female referees like Stéphanie Frappart officiating top flight men's games.

I mean, there are top women managers (Sarina Wiegman and Emma Hayes being notable examples). But I think that as (although women have been playing football for many years) it's only fairly recently it's really gained high awareness, I suspect there are still more men than women with the skills, experience and confidence to manage a team. That will change.

(There's also Hannah Dingley who managed a men's team, though I'm not sure what happened with that.)

I've seen, although not read, headlines about how the training and management of women's football is dominated by men. Those photos really drove it home, they're all men. I'll definitely read the next article I see because I want to know why that is. I don't believe it's because there are no women who are qualified. Possibly the women's teams are seen as a side hustle, that the trainers and managers take on in addition to their main job with the men's teams (gawd forbid a woman would do that). Or they're a step the men take before proceeding to the real prize of the men's teams. Whatever, if there are women interested enough to play, they'll be interested enough to do the other jobs too. So, football, why aren't they?

I'd be very interested to find out.

Absolutely hideous picture of L Clark on that link.

Sutton United women's football team appears to be all-female now. Do we know what happened to Blair Hamilton?
https://www.suttonunited.net/womens-first-team/squad/

Ohhhhh.....

Still took me a while with both sets of clues 😞

Is it wrong I first thought "Bride and... chain"?

Someone who works with horses?

Brride and xxx?

Oh God, that's like a cryptic crossword clue!!! ALEXA....

Well, that is interesting.
Maybe there is trouble in paradise after all. Perhaps a player revolt? From the other team as well? If so, hope it extends to the manager and the Sutton United Women board.

BH is still on the website, but perhaps it has not been updated.

I'm not sure how to interpret this?

https://x.com/davecorviddave/status/1833212919150268500?t=z-XUonOPrdBGDtz6kWUhmg&s=19

I had a teen in that regional league a couple of years ago now and I cannot imagine that the parents from my teen's team would be less horrified than your DD's team. It is appalling.

Sutton was the one team though that I felt had rather aggressive coaching staff and parents.

I see the story and the thread has moved on a bit since the OP, but I've been meaning to pop on here to say that beautiful Blair has been doing a fabulous job of peaking the parents at DD(14)'s football team. We live in the same geographical area though DD does not play for Sutton. After the story broke all the dads bar none were expressing how appalled they were and the keeper's dad was so angry and upset, not ever happening to his DD, will be over his dead body etc.
There was a bit of chat previously when Imaine Khalif was boxing during the Olympics but this has brought the issue front and centre. We are all appalled that the FA just waves these men with lady-feelings through into women's football, a sport that has been making such great strides for (bio)women and girls in recent years.

sadly not just predictable, but inevitable. And it's inevitable that more will try and join. And it will keep going until somebody tells them no.

Yes. BH is currently the only one. BH is bound to be the best keeper at a club at that level of football.

my choice of wording was in poor taste, I apologise, though am genuinely interested to know whether BH is still the #1 ladies' keeper at this club.

I caught the post before it vanished and think it was for using a verb that often means preparing a successor but can have another implication too.