Jacqueline Winstanley from FiLiA in conversation with Karen Dobres.

JW: Hi everyone. I was really delighted to be asked to do this particular podcast in no small part because my own daughter was a football player and she played for Baltimore Ladies. So I've actually travelled this path and it's very important to me. I'm delighted to be here at Lewes Football Club today.

And I'd like to introduce you now to Karen Dobres who is actually the Equality FC Campaign Manager at Lewes Football Club. 

Hi Karen we're conducting this podcast in a rather spectacular beach hut overlooking the pitch. What a wonderful place to be. 

I just love this. It's such a unique concept. I've had some time with Karen today. I've watched the game. I saw some amazing football out there today. So this really is grassroots at its best and it's been wonderful. So thank you for the opportunity. So I have a few questions for you. 

And I'd like to start with who is Karen Dobres? 

Could you please tell us about your journey? 

Karen: Yeah. Why am I here in this beach hut today having just watched a football match?

JW: What challenges have you faced and how did you get here? Why football? 

Karen: Yeah. Why indeed. Well, okay. I have to say if I think about it, I'm very surprised that I'm here in this beach hut with you too at our home ground here in Lewes.

My career has been an unusual career path, if you like. When I was much younger, I was a fashion model. And that's how I earned money, paid my rent. And I also paid for a course to do counselling. Then I became a counsellor and then I ran a counselling service for Polygram Records and managed it and managed lots of other counsellors.

And then I had kids and then I started to write and I wrote a fashion blog. And then from my writing I became interested in Equality FC when that started in 2017, because I thought I'd write about it. So I came down to a women's match having hated football before that I really hated men's football and I hated it because I associated it with hooliganism and overpaid premier league stars in jacuzzies with glamorous women and crowds and racism and all sorts of things that I really don't like.

So I've kind avoided it. And I thought it was a man's game. And when I heard about Equality FC that they were going to pay the women the same as the men in my hometown, I thought that's really interesting, I think I'll write a blog on that for HuffPost, but anyway, I came to watch a women's match here and something happened to me.

I felt, I have to say, empowered watching it. And the reason for this was that I came on my own and I found it was possible to be in this kind of public space and just have sort of camaraderie with the people next to me, even though I was on my own as a woman, without feeling embarrassed.

And it was quite easy to just chat to people under no pressure because we had our focus on the game. The other thing I really liked was seeing these young women who are generally aged between about 17 and 34, Lewes FC women players, being powerful and strong and dynamic and active in a public place.

And what I was used to because my daughter was a teenager then, and a lot of her friends, you know, they follow me on Instagram and things like that. And I'd look at their pictures and I think, not another picture in a nightclub toilet posing in a boob tube. Why girls, why are you doing this? I know what you’re like in real life.

And all I would see of women of that kind of age was Love Island and X Factor, and I don't know, Little Mix and stuff. And they were really about presenting themselves for decoration. And these young women were a perfect antidote to that. That's why I felt empowered. I felt hopeful after seeing them. And I felt like some of it rubbed off on me, their strength, their focus and their determination. There was so much about them that I admired. 

I never expected that. I never expected to come to a football match and feel that. And I think that I wouldn't have got that from watching a men's match because men are in those kinds of positions of power all day long. They are seen in public spaces doing powerful things and being assertive, whereas women aren't so much.

 So watching women's football for me as a woman was a totally different experience from a man watching women's football or a man watching men's football or a woman watching man’s football.

I walked home and I felt really interested, I suppose, in my feelings. And I started to come to the women's matches and become a fan. So I got home. And at that time on the board here at Lewes FC were mainly men and the couple of women that were on the board, weren't keen on talking about it in public, let's say, because they had other roles that were very brilliant roles, but this wasn't something they wanted to go around and promote and talk about and be happy in the public eye with. 

And so of course, very importantly, my husband is on the board, which is how I even heard about Equality FC. And he said to me, could you tell some of the women's groups that you know about the equality campaign? And I said, yeah, I'd be happy to. So I started to tell women's group. New people started to come to the women's matches. So women who had never been to a football match in their life before, or had thought football wasn't their cup of tea, or who had felt that a football stadium would be a scary place, decided to give it a go because I told them about the equality campaign and that we are brilliantly, but shockingly the only club on the planet to pay our women the same as the men.

They were surprised by this and they wanted to see what was going on, but more so, even more importantly, I told them what I had learned about women's football history, which is that there was a ban on women's football from 1921 until 1971. And actually how that happened was that the men had gone to fight for our country in the war, in the first world war and the women had been put to work in munitions factories. And they'd been working making weapons, making parachutes, that kind of thing. And they started to kick a ball around. I mean, I don't really know how it started, but they started to play football and factory started to play factory and it became professionalised so that there were leagues.

This is really in a nutshell. They started to play these leagues and by the time the men got that from the war, the women were attracting crowds in tens of thousands to their matches. At first they'd been ridiculed and they'd been pitch invasions and things, but eventually people started to come to these matches and the FA in their wisdom said that women shouldn't play football because it was highly unsuitable. And they got a doctor to say that for gynaecological reasons, women shouldn't play football. This took just 15 minutes in a meeting to decide that they would do this.

And they banned women from playing on FA pitches and they banned them from playing with FA affiliated coaches. 

It could have been that they really seriously thought that gynaecologically it was unsafe in some way for women to play football. It could have been because women were actually collecting for striking miners families at their matches and making quite a lot of money. So there could've been a political reason, or it could have been that they didn't want to feel that the men's matches were threatened by the women being more public. We don't know really, but all they said was its highly unsuitable for females to play, even though females were doing very, very well at that point. The ban wasn't lifted until 1971. 

And during those 50 years’ men's football took off. TV was invented wasn't it and everything. And sponsorship deals and money was ploughed into the men's game. The women's game was effectively decimated by this ban. 

So when I go to women's groups and I tell them this, their feeling is one of probably anger and surprise, because quite often they didn't know that this had been the case.

And then it's like, what can I do about that? And I say to them, well, you can come to a women's football match because if you add to our crowd figure, you are proving that there is nothing inherently boring or rubbish about women's football. 

Men will tell you that, some of them to be fair, not all of them, of course will tell you that women’s football is rubbish, that girls can't play football, that people shouldn't watch women's football because it's boring and that's why there's empty stadiums and all of that kind of thing. And they're totally ignorant of the fact that they've had male football privilege for those years, between 1921 and 1971.

And they say that as if there's something inside girls and women that makes them no good at football or not want to watch football. And I’m sorry to tell you that I bought that lie.

That's why I'd never watched football before. And I only have been a fan since July, 2017. And so me telling groups about it meant that we unearthed this new market via equality and via getting women to come in solidarity with the cause.

We've had a massive increase in our gate figures. I can tell you a lot more 

about that, but basically I hope that explains why I'm still here. And I volunteer and I tell people about the equality campaign and I publicise it. And I make links with women's organisations because we are a massive football club, we're not massive. We're a small club, but we are massive in that we're a community owned club and we have all these people come so we can actually help them as well. 

We had a rise in domestic abuse. Today we have Brighton women's centre on the door collecting. So we support women's charities on our gate and also in doing stuff with them and for them. And they also come to our matches. 

So it's amazingly mutually beneficial relationship that we have through Equality. 

JW: Perfect. I'm sure they're really pleased that you're here. 

Karen:  Well, it's great that they're here too.

 JW: So my second question is a little bit more about Lewes Football Club and particularly your role. You've touched on the fact that you're a volunteer. 

Where does it sit within the management and business side of the club? And we're really interested in how, and if you think about this for a minute, may be in amongst the resounding voices of why it can't be done, did you persuade the club to implement this equal pay approach? 

Karen: Right. So I didn't personally, but I'll tell you what my role, if anything was. So Lewes Football Club in 2010 became 100% community owned. Prior to that it was in danger of being closed down because of profits not being enough. So because we're community owned, owned by all the people around and also in other countries as well. It's in our DNA to create value for our community. So, whereas other clubs have to make profits for shareholders, we, at our very base are not trying to do that. We're actually looking to see how we can improve the lot of our owners. And one problem in our society is discrimination. So one problem we know we can address is this gender discrimination in this case, So that hopefully answers what the base of it is.

 So the directors, the elected directors of the club look to see what they can do. And I think because we're a small club and unusually, perhaps our women play in a much higher league than our men and our women have been brilliant over the years and really done so well so that they were in a high league. And yet with the playing budgets, they were getting a smaller playing budget than the men's and the directors questioned it. And I remember Charlie coming home and saying to me, what would you think if we were to pay the women and the men the same? And I said, well, what would the men save? Would you lower their income? No, we just raised the women's. That's amazing. Yeah. 

I can't see that anyone saying no to that that's a win-win, you know, I think you should definitely do it. It makes absolute sense. And if you think about it, why isn't anyone else doing it?  

It's not so much: Why are we doing it? It's like, what about everyone else?

Wake up you know; this is blatant sexism in action. 

So, yeah, that, that's kind of how it came about.

We say we pay women the same as men. What that actually means is we assign equal playing budgets to both our first teams. So within those budgets, they can then, because all players are different standards and quality of games. So the coach and everyone decides who gets what and what goes to gym training and what goes to travel and stuff like that. But they get exactly the same and they can do what they decide is best with that. 

Does that answer the question? 

JW: It does. The main thing that I was seeing all the time here is the why isn't everybody else?

Karen:   Yes, absolutely. I think we need to be really, really clear about that because actually, what has been normalised is misogyny within football. Everyone thinks that's normal. I'm not part of that because I was, I thought men only played football. And if women did play, why the hell were they being paid for it? They can't be that good. That's what I actually thought. I was completely wrong, but I forgive myself. I understand why I thought that. Football's a male bastion and within it's very systems, sexism exists right from the boardroom to the grassroots.

You will go and see girls playing football with boys and you will see parents shouting – don’t let a girl tackle you, you softie - to their son.  And then you'll have male coaches saying, ‘come on, boys do better’ - when there are girls in the team. and then you will have girls having to travel much further in order to play football because there aren't other girls to play with, so they can't play with their friends like the boys can. Then you will have boys manspreading in playgrounds taking all the space to play football and girls squashed into a little space to have a chat at the edge of the playground. know? So there's sexism everywhere.

It's from the beginning and it comes right up to the level we're playing out, which is the second highest tier of English Women's Football, the championship level. And what we see here is that our women are semi-pro, they all have jobs as well as play. And if you look at the second highest league of men's football, you wouldn't be getting that.

Once I get on this subject, I mean the FA prize for the team that wins the FA cup for the women's team is 25,000. For the men's team, 3.6 million pounds win the FA prize. I mean then that what a woman playing football in the highest league here earns in a year is what a man playing in the highest league would earn in a week.

So we're talking about vast disparities that have become normalised, but what we're also talking about is that a lot of our players have internalised these values and they are happy with the crumbs that they're getting from the men's table. But we can't allow that to continue. It's disrespectful. It devalues women and women in football. If they're seen as inferior, then all women are seen as inferior. 

JW: I remember when my daughter was training, she started when she was about five or six and she moved on into the women's team. It was common kind of, almost like a joke that the women's team would arrive in the old banger car and park beside the Porsche perhaps of the same age. And I think I agree with you, it's those things that need to change. 

Karen: What does that say to little girls?

JW: Exactly, I know. One thing that I really found really interesting with the video that I saw of your football club before I agreed to do the podcast was a father, and he explained this really well, he was saying he no longer wanted to be saying to his daughter who was playing football, that she was not worth the same as a boy who was playing football next to. And I think it's these things that do need to change. 

One of my questions you've touched on and I'd actually put it like this, that in choosing, and it almost sounds like you didn't necessarily choose here to address this issue, it sort of presented itself to you by becoming part of the club, was, I sort of said, well, why football? Why with one of the most challenging areas to address this issue around equal pay, where unlike sports such as tennis, no member of a women's team has ever made it to the Forbes rich list. It's a really difficult area to do this. You're trying to change something where the usual response is: We can't do anything about it. It’s sponsorship. And actually what you’re showing here is don't have a problem saying its sponsorship, but share it more equally. 

Karen: Okay. Exactly. And also in a way football is the perfect place to start because it's such, it's so full of the patriarchy and men, and I don't know it is a male bastion, so it's the perfect place to campaign for equality because it's so obvious and so clear what needs to happen, I think it's brilliant.  

JW: Okay. So the next thing I'd like us to talk about, and again, you've touched on a little bit of this. I think it'd be really wrong if we had this conversation without paying homage to those who came before us. And to reflect on the injustice that was and continues to be served upon them. Most notably as you've spoken about the FA ban on women's football. Now, I didn't know about this as, as a mom of a daughter who played in women's football. I wasn't aware of that ban. And when I actually did some research prior to doing the podcast, I actually couldn't believe it. 

The rationale for doing so and that it actually wasn't challenged and even more so, it was at the height of success, these ladies were having 50,000 gate numbers. There was no rationale for this. And as you rightly said, it took till 1971 to reverse that injustice. 

So, one thing I'd like to ask you about is the ban in particular and the impact it had on economic growth within women's football.

Karen: Well, the impact it had on economic growth, was it that it completely stopped it. It's not that women didn't play any football in that time, but it certainly wasn't professionalised on any level. And it was certainly generally looked upon as a bit odd, a bit not feminine, you know, that kind of thing.

The effect it had in terms of economics, was it took all resources away from the women's game, all attention away from the women's game and gave them to the men's game. That was the effect of the ban and those two things, resources and attention are the two things that we're desperate for in the women's game, we get 1% women's football, not sports, football gets 1% of the coverage, media wise of football.

If you think how much men's football media coverage there is. Sponsorship wise, very little, yes, things are changing, but they could be changing a lot more and a lot faster as far as we're concerned here at Lewes. And then crowds, one of the problems I would say is that a lot of women's teams don't play on the same pitch as the equivalent of their male counterparts.

And the reason that you'll find people will give for this is they'll say, well, the women's team will rattle around in that stadium because they don't get the crowds. But if you don't get the media attention and you don't get the marketing resources behind your women's team, you will not get the crowds.

What we have proven here at the dripping pan is that when you put resources behind your women's teams, the crowds come, not only has all gate figure gone up for our women's team, it's risen for our men's team since we started Equality FC. And what that says is that equality makes sense for both men and women's teams.

And what we like to say here is a very nice phrase is that ‘We're raising all our boats on a rising tide of equality’ and that's what we've done. The thing is this argument that there'll be rattling around really annoys me because yes, they will be, like any team would be, if you didn't advertise it and let people know that it was happening and build your market.

It doesn't just annoy me in a kind of emotional and moral sense, but in an economic sense, because what they're doing, right, these clubs have got two great products and they've got one product that's totally mature and will continue to do very well, but they've got another product that so has so much potential and is so under exploited, sorry to use that word, but do you know what I'm saying in an economic sense, that it's just crazy to come to the first hurdle, which is connected to all these other things that they haven't even thought about and then stumble and fall.

Well, listen guys, until you wake up to your sexism, we are reaping the benefits here at Lewes. So carry on, but please, we would actually like to influence you and tell you that Equality FC seen makes so much sense. It's the right thing to do. And even if you are a big club, so you can't immediately pay women the same as the men and even if you've got a massive stadium and there's no way that your women's crowds at the moment would fill it it's stuff that you should be aiming to do. It’s stuff that should underline the decisions that you make because it's the right thing to do for society, women and men in general, boys and girls, but also because economically you’re stabbing yourself in the foot basically if you don't do it, this is a new product with so much potential behind it. And there's a market. You just need to find it. 

JW: You've talked a little bit about the campaign. Could you tell me a little bit more about that? I think people would be really interested in terms of what that actually means, in reality. 

Karen: Equality FC is the name of our campaign and it's the campaign whereby Lewes introduced equal pay and closed the gender pay gap on the football pitch. 

What it involves is hard to sum up and say it neatly because it's pioneering ground and carving this new path. So we are finding out as we go along, what it involves and the things that we've done under the Equality FC banner are assign these equal paying budgets to the two first teams. We've increased participation in the sport for girls.

So we're going to assemblies and we're talking specifically about encouraging girls to play football. And it is often girls that hold girls back, not just boys. So we talk about stereotypes and we say that the same stereotypes that say, girls don't play football are the ones that say, boys don't cry and we've really got to all be ourselves because we're all suffering. 

We're all suffering from being pigeonholed into kind of really narrow ways of expressing ourselves. If you ask any of our female players, what they feel when they play football, they'll say they feel freedom and they feel passion. And these are things that no one should have taken away from them.

These are about being human. So we do these kinds of things and, oh my goodness, boys should be able to cry. They should be able to talk about their feelings. Oh my goodness. These make whole people.

So we talk about those things in assemblies. Then we've addressed the FA prize fund gap. We've written an open letter to the FA. You may have seen it where we have talked about these vast differences that exist, and we've asked the FA to address them. 

We've now established a working party that's working towards that. Under the Equality FC banner we visited Parliament and we've talked at the All-Party Political Group for Sport, Modern Slavery and Human Rights, we represent ourselves there. 

Because I've done this work with women's groups, we decided to start a sister ship, which is just in the process of starting up whereby we have a special link with certain groups to help each other publicise what each other are doing to the community.

So that's a really great thing because it establishes really great connections. It's also quite funny because you know, football is this traditional male thing and all these groups are very women oriented. So I'm talking, you know, Brighton Women's Centre, Rise, the Soroptimists, Sister Society in Brighton, even The Old Market Theatre in Hove has a reigning women's season and that season is going to join our sister ship. All these amazing groups join. So Equality FC has done that. 

Basically we're trying to make the football ground more inclusive to women. And that comes under the banner of Equality FC as well. And that's where we're trying things out. 

So for example, we ran a nail bar in the Rook Inn because we're called The Rooks after the birds that nest around the Pan and also the castle on the hill here in Lewes with the Rooks. In the Rook Inn, which is our bar down there, we started a nail bar and it didn't really take off because it just takes quite a while to have your nails done and you couldn't really miss the core of a match, just to have your nails done so that didn't work out. 

One thing we have done is offered a wider range of food and drink. So we have, not just cheesy chips, we have Fetter and cheese pies. We have not just Harvey's Beer, we have Prosecco. We have different things that might appeal to a different group of people, namely women that may not have been interested in football before. And that seems to have worked. 

The other thing we do, of kids all go free to both women's and men's matches under sixteens go free.

Women's matches tend to be much more family oriented. So you saw a lot of kids running around today and we have colouring available in the bar and have, well behaved dogs are allowed. 

I think it's a relaxed atmosphere. There isn't swearing, there isn't that kind of behaviour and aggro that you get sometimes at more bloke heavy matches, because we have, I reckon we have about 50/50 gender balance at our women's matches in terms of the crowd.

We've looked at ways that we can be really welcoming, people like myself and Rosie, our Marketing and Development Manager, one of our great board directors is now a woman Gallia. We are all near the front, the people that check you in are women. We will say hello to people. It's not rocket science, but it's just like being really welcoming and being conscious of being welcoming, it's something that we do actively. 

If there are women around that don't look like they're talking to people, I'll have an eye out, you know, and I'll suggest something stupid like we chant together, do a bit of football chanting or something. And that's quite fun. 

JW: I've noticed today that there definitely is this sort of camaraderie. I've listened to people today as well. And there's two things I'd like to say to you. One is I have seen so much networking going on here today when the match wasn't being played.

So it changes things as well as well, in terms of moving away from the stereotype of men going to the match and the women staying at home, doing whatever, et cetera, but also I was listening to a mother and a daughter and the daughter turned round and said - have you really liked it? -  and mom said, yeah, but it was a real game of football.  

On so many levels today I've observed this absolutely family orientated event. I've watched you, and you rightly say, you have an eye everywhere, constantly making sure that everybody has what they need. And I think you've talked about the word equity. That's what that's about. The definition of that is it's giving people what they need.

And I think I've seen that today on so many levels and that's something to be very proud of. 

 The other thing that I wanted to speak to in this particular question, in terms of the global approach to equity within the game, does that go far enough? And do you think it's going to address issues around intersectionality and misogyny that is so prevalent in the game?

Karen: What the equality campaign, will that address these issues? 

JW: I'm thinking more of the actual governing bodies and their responses and their targets and standards, et cetera. 

Karen: I can only say, I don't know, cause its unexplored territory at the moment, but we're pushing towards it and that's all I can say.

We are in a way doing what we can right here. We’re looking at details. And we're hoping that some of the seeds we plant are really going to take off and I think they will. Because we're the only club in the world that does it, we do have a global reach and we do, do things differently here, for sure.

I mean, it's not just in terms of the equality campaign. The other stuff we do is send out these amazing posters. So anything we do is governed by the fact that we're trying to respect women and make up for the fact that they haven't been respected before. So, I mean, I don't know if this really answers your question, but a lot of our posters are shared sort of around the world a lot. So maybe that helps.

 But what they do is they feature an inspirational woman from the away team's locale. And the reason they do that is because we know that women footballers have had to overcome so many obstacles in their player pathway, usually from the age of about seven or eight. And it just continues. It's like blow after blow after blow basically. 

If you talk to some of our players, Shannon will tell you, she used to play for Spurs that have recently, as in last week, announced that they become Tottenham Hotspur Women, but they've always been Tottenham Hotspur Ladies and there’s significance in that language. And I'll talk about that in a minute. 

Shannon used to play for Spurs Ladies. And the men got all these training kit and, and they got something like 11 pairs of socks. I don't quote me actually, because I can't remember what she said, but loads of pairs of socks that they had to wear for training, the women got one pair.

Right. So not only did they have to do their training and their own job, which the men didn't have to, they can play football all day if they like and train in the day, not at night, like the ladies. They had to get home at night at 11:00 PM and put a wash on to wash their socks ready for training the next evening.

Jess will tell you that she was playing in Germany for a massive team in the Bundesliga and this company that sponsored them gave the men's team, all these free football boots, amazing boots. So she actually went to the van where it's being delivered and asked, could she buy a pair? And they said, no. Never mind getting them for free, you’re not even allowed to buy them. 

This is the kind of thing we hear all the time from our players. And they see that as fairly normal. They come here, they wake up to the inequality, they're aware of it, don't get me wrong, but they become crosser about it and hopefully that goes into their game and they get really focused because it's a way of addressing it in football, when you see all this.

We know what obstacles the away team will have faced and so we want to honour them by choosing an inspirational woman from where they are and doing the poster in their colours, whatever colour they normally play in. And then we have one of our players alongside the inspirational woman. 

So here, you see, we've just played Sheffield United. So we've got Helen Sharman, astronaut, in the middle of the poster. She came from the area. Then we've got Amy Taylor, one of our amazing defenders. Awesome. Playing alongside there and the poster is done in the colours of Sheffield United, and you'll see the badge of Sheffield United there. 

It's all done pop art style. And that's really interesting because pop art actually brings together disparate things and makes one image of them. And we're actually bringing together here, feminism and football and making one image of them.

What we're also doing is associating art with football. So we're bringing sport and culture together. Normally not the best of bedfellows, but we've brought them together. And what we're suggesting to people is that football is part of life.

And what goes on on the pitch has a massive effect way beyond the pitch. And we believe that to be true. Often it's not a conscious one and people aren't aware of it but it's true. 

So that's why I see a lot of detail goes into this kind of thing. Like the poster, the way we write about our women. Lewes women, they are not Lewes ladies.

The reason for that is that ladies is a slightly anachronistic term. All right. It's slightly disempowering. The opposite of it is gentlemen. It could make me think of public toilets. It could make me think of crinolines. I don't know what it makes you think of, but it doesn't make you think of strong, independent, assertive, talented warriors, which is what we've got out there.

So we will not call them ladies and we will call them women. And that's why we do it. 

JW: I'm thinking as well, in terms of the governing bodies who have over the years, try to address these issues. And some of it's worked so and you might think who on earth was in the marketing team when they perhaps suggested things like pink whistles, or if the football bibs smelled nice and that might encourage more girls to girls and women into football. 

Yet still we see, quite recently on the websites that even the language around getting young girls interested in football or boys is very different. So again, as part of the research, I was just, just reading a little bit and I had to have a little chuckle because it talked about some guidance on what, what you ought to wear. So comfortable clothes and no heels. 

So I'm starting to see what we have here is this grassroots approach to this that maybe has a lot of valuable information to share with the governing bodies, maybe there's some listening needs to be done really in terms of how this will work. 

Karen: We have really good friends in the women's FA, so that we've got a really good link there. And we were really careful to do our letter respectfully and we want to continue with that approach.

We're very clear about what we think should happen and what we would like to happen and the kind of example that we want to set. but at the same time, things very rarely work do they, if you impose aggressively in some way, your view. So what we want to do is work with the people within football to try and make these changes.

We've had plenty of kickback on what we're doing, that we get people trolling us on Twitter, or we get people who disagree. And I think I kind of understand it to some extent, because some men feel really like football was their thing and it's their last thing. And, oh, you're going to take that away from me too.

I have some compassion for that view, but it's not what we're doing, 

It's important, I think, to really understand that and to understand where people's defensiveness might be coming from or where their feelings are coming from really, you know, as culture changes and I believe culture will change through this to understand it and just keep compassionate, and keep empathising. because then we get our tone right. 

JW: I think that’s a really good approach actually. And is reflective of good equality working practice that does bring about sustainable change when people do work together.

Karen: You've got experience of this. What's the best thing to do then?

JW: I actually think what you've done, because what tends to happen is people look at the problems, they talk about what should be done, but they don't actually get on and do it. And you've actually addressed this head on and you said, well, we're going to do this and we'll address the problems as they arise.

In all my work that I've done, I've literally thought ‘what's really at the crux of this’?  And done some research, piloted a few things and then actually put it in place. And generally when you do that and you get people talking and working together, these things do seem to sort of just sort of work themselves out.

And those real, what you might've seen as entrenched responses that people feared, would be result of the things that have been put into place, actually don't happen. So I think you’re doing the right thing.

Karen: We have to listen to people, you know, and we have this idea because we're a community, of leaving no one behind.

So it's about having dialogue with people, it is about being sure that we're going to take action. We're not going to leave things and just to peter out, and it is about checking with ourselves at every stage, like, is this working? Is it not working? And what do we actually want to achieve? Well, we want to keep getting these new women to come to football and then to stay. And to become fans and to get that connection, to get that unity together and to get all the empowering feelings that come from being a women's football fan, which I believe I do. That's just reminded me of something else. 

So the women's football chanting, we started women's football chanting workshops. We’ve done two so far, and we're going to do a couple at festivals this summer coming. And the thing about these women's football chanting workshops is they happen quite organically. 

We were playing Aston Villa ladies. They came here to play us and they bought some male fans that were quite vociferous and had these drums. And they're actually louder than us. We thought we can't have this. So our own home ground, these fans supporting the villains. We've got to shout for our women, but we weren't sure some of us how to do it in a way, because it's actually a skill that boys and men learn by osmosis.

They go to men's matches from the word go and they learn, they kind of get the hang of chanting. So my friend actually said, name-check Jamie Freeman who was with me. And he said, you know, why don't we? Because he was used to football chanting, said, why don't we workshop chanting in your kitchen on Saturday?

So we got a group of us friends together, it was Jamie, there was one other guy Magnus. And then there was about six of us women and we were in my kitchen and we thought, well, what's actually involved in football chanting. So we need to go slightly lower in our register, otherwise it can sound screechy. You need to stand like a warrior. Okay. So strong. Think strong, powerful. And then we need to do these things three times. Right. That's how many times do a chant. And then you need to be anthemic and need to end on a high. 

We can get quite creative. We’re called the Rooks. So - we will, we will Rook you -  and a body movement. That's the other thing. So like, Rooks upside your head … And you can get quite into it.

And bear in mind when you're chanting, you're supporting other women.

So you are women supporting women in this fairly non-traditional way. 

And really letting go, you know, because you have to get over yourself a bit because you do sound a bit nut casey at first. And you get into this football chanting and actually we've done these workshops and people come out saying they feel great, you know, they feel like they could really take on the world Because they've kind of lost their ego doing it, and they've had this great oooomph of an experience and they've been doing it together. 

So there are so many great things about these women's football chanting workshops that we want to take out and kind of give everyone the chance to support, and hopefully come and support our team as well. 

JW: Which I'm sure they will. But I'm thinking about that in terms of when you listen to a choir that actually people's heartbeat will start to beat at the same rate.

Karen: Really? That explains a lot, that explains so much about football because we become one with our team and with each other. 

JW: So it's just a wonderful thing to do and to see, but certainly in my experience, whenever I work to reduce any inequality then it is about almost because you usually, what what's said is, well, you can't.

It's very important to understand what the issues are and about, well, actually, yes, I think that's what we're seeing here. 

Yeah. So if we were to look at this scales in terms of inequality over excellence. So in spite, I think of the significant and ongoing challenges, women’s football has produced some incredible teams and players. 

So who were, and who are your current role models? 

Karen: You know, it's quite easy cause it's the team. Because what happens working here, is you get to know the players. One of my things is to go tell people about what we're doing and the best responses I have are when I have a football player with me, unless it's a very specific meeting about this business or something.

So yeah, so the team I would say are my role models now. I find them really inspirational. I think that they have an attitude that they developed a life that is really, really useful and can kind of rub off on you a bit when you hang out with them. So for example, when Shannon and I went to Parliament, and I follow her on Instagram and she follows me and she was putting on Instagram, she put ‘Going to Parliament’. And she said ‘Game on’. And she had this like punchy fist, you know? And I was thinking, oh my God, I think she's approaching this like she does on match day. I think she's approaching, going to Parliament, like a football match. That’s such a good idea. And I suddenly got myself all this confidence. And I thought, yeah, put my match day face on. Let's go to the House of Lords. 

And then there's Faye and she talks about what she's had to overcome in terms of injuries and stuff in order to keep in the game. And she just says, if I can inspire one girl to play football through all the stuff I've done, the highs, the lows, everything, then my job's done.

And I find that inspirational, you know, and when I see them, they do their jobs, they do nine to five. So they come train here three nights a week. They've got families, a couple of them are mothers. That's inspirational to me. I think they're amazing. 

And there's a lot, there for me to aspire to.

JW: That's brilliant. And what would you say to young girls and or women who are considering a career in professional football? 

Karen: What would I say? I would say that it's a very interesting and good choice because I think there's so much potential and it's really going to grow. I think it's going to blast actually. I think it's going to be brilliant Women's Football. 

There'll be lots of chances to play and chances to be the team behind the team, which is what I'm part of, and chances to get into the media involved with women's football, there'll be loads. 

But what I would also say as a word of warning is that it's still quite an exclusive sport for women. So although here, happy, happy, happy. Yeah. Other clubs not so happy. 

So what I would say is that at the moment, for women in football, you have to be able to use the adversity to your advantage. You will get sexist attitudes all around you, and you will be told you can't do stuff because you're a woman.

We had a reporter here the other day and she said that when she was reporting on matches pitch side, she did get men, shout, get your tits out, you know, stuff like that. But she said, oh, well, I've got brothers. So I just of took it in my stride. And I said, yeah, but for a woman that's had any form of sexual abuse or something, then that job that you've got becomes a no-no doesn't it.

I mean, it is still a sexist arena. 

So for a girl or a woman going into it, I hate to say it, but you know, the reality is that you need to have good support around you and a good old, thick skin, be able to take the knocks, let it be water off a duck's back, do all the things, whether it's meditation, whether it's counselling, whether it's family, whether it's friends, whether it's walking the dog, whether it's having a hot bath. 

Workout, what things support you in your life so that you can take it on because it's going to be a challenge, but there's going to be a lot of fun involved as well. That's probably what I would say really. 

JW: We touched a little bit on intersectionality and it's good to come back to that at this point. So obviously the equal pay is one aspect of what you do. I can see just from talking to you and what I've observed in the club today, that you are starting to look at things around disability, socioeconomic, et cetera.

You're looking all of these things. 

Karen: Well, I mean, as I say, we're owned by our community within that community is a whole diverse group of people. So we have to be able to include all of them and do our best to recognise our community and become aware of what barriers might be in their way of enjoying a match with all the rest of us.

I don't know if you met Susie that was here today, but she's a firm fan and less able and has difficulty walking. So we have a special place for her and you'll find that loads of people know her around here and will stop and have a chat.  We have kids go free under 16, we've got free sanitary towels in the toilet. So if you’re a young girl ….

JW: I did notice that I took a picture of it. It was amazing, 

Karen: But if you haven't got a bean, this is somewhere you can come and have high quality entertainment and you bring your sandwich in your bag, you know, and if you're under 16, then students is, I think it's three pounds, or unwaged.

It's eight pounds on the gate is reasonable, isn't it? We do lots of different promotions to different groups. 

Did you hear that we had public sector workers go free a few weeks ago because it was .. what was the name of the men's match? There was some reason for that. I can't remember, but that was at a men's match. We actually have a lot of fun thinking of different ways that we can let sections of our community come in for free because that's who we are, you know, we're a community club. 

JW: I think that shines out brightly, actually, 

Karen: I really hope it does, it's at the root of everything that we do.

JW: I've got a funny feeling that this isn't the last time that I'll be here. Maybe we'll get a chance to chat again. but thank you so much. It's been such a unique. perspective that I'm seeing here., I firmly believe the way to challenge inequalities is actually just to get on and do it.

Karen: We have to just take action. I mean, we're very, very passionate. And when you have all this passion you have to put it somewhere and the only way to actually see change is by doing something, whether it's deed, thought or word. Those are the three ways that you can create change.

We know that, and we have this amazing vehicle to do it with, a football club. And it's amazing. We're so lucky. We're so privileged to be able to do this. 

JW: And through sport, we know it can achieve such great things in term of social cohesion, et cetera. So, yeah, absolutely. I'm going to see great things here.

Karen:  Thank you Jacqueline. Thank you FiLiA.