Monday 24 April 2017

It's Different For Girls

I've always thought that there's nothing a man can do that a woman can't. Not necessarily in direct competition when it comes to sport, of course, as you can't defy the statistic I once heard that 99% of men are stronger than 5% of women. My wife asking me to open a jar reveals this truism most days.

And I always thought it a bit odd that, at school, there were boys' sports (football, rugby, cricket) and girls' sports (netball and hockey). Athletics and gymnastics were the less usual, gender-neutral sports. Wouldn't the girls have preferred to play footie?

And I made my then teenage sons look at me askance when I predicted that women's soccer would become a big spectator sport, with probably a different and maybe better balance between skill and strength, some 15 years or more ago. Which it gradually is.

But maybe there was a reason the girls played lower contact sports. Dr Mike Turner, medical director of the International Head Injury Research Foundation is 12 months into a 3 year project examining that issue. When he was chief adviser to the British Horseracing Authority he realised that, despite falling far less often than their male counterparts, female jockeys are knocked out 3.6 times more often than the men. The rates of injuries such as broken legs is the same for both genders of jockey. Concussion is the exception. Some sources say sportswomen are 50% more likely to suffer concussion than sportsmen. But to date, from a study of 250 retired amateur and professional riders from horse racing, show jumping and point to point, there is no evidence of any different long term outcomes for women. "We don't appear to have any Jeff Astles in our cohort" Tuner said, referring to the former West Brom striker who broke my heart in the 1968 FA Cup Final but died aged 59 from chronic traumatic encephalopathy, associated (not proven I thought - and hope as a former centre back!) with repeatedly heading footballs. Astle will have headed a few more than me, mind.

Turner hopes to extend his study to former footballers, rugby players and boxers, though it is only recently that women have taken these sports up in any numbers. He doesn't know why women lose consciousness more than men in an equivalent situation, but offers three theories:
  • girls are more honest than boys: they will admit they feel dizzy, have a headache or double vision whereas "boys invariably lie" (been there). But in horse racing they rely on a doctor diagnosis: each faller has a medical assessment
  • Sportswomen have more delicate necks. It is weak neck muscles that are the cause of a boxer's so-called "glass jaw". But most women involved in impact sports have "sturdy necks" (his words, feministas, not mine!)
  • The third and most likely reason is "the fundamental genetic and hormonal difference between genders. The female brain appears more sensitive to impact than the male brain". (Glad he added "to impact", else it would have been a case of "tell us something we don't know").
So maybe, instinctively, there was a reason why the girls played netball and not footie or rugby.

Not that I am arguing that should be the case. But if this is proven it is information that parents would surely want to be aware of. And, in this wonderful modern world, we might find that schools don't offer girls the opportunity to play traditionally boys' sports in case they get sued.

PS my positive remarks about women's football as a spectator sport need to be leavened by the recent news about Notts County winding up its team just days before the Spring series was due to start, leaving it with 9 teams instead of 10. It must have been an easy decision for Alan Hardy, the new owner of County's male and female clubs. Notts Counties Ladies (yes, indeed, "Ladies" not wimmin) was £350k in debt (mainly to HMRC) and was expected to cost £500k to run this year with a projected income from attendances and sponsorship of - wait for it - £28k. I expect you would be hard pushed to run a serious amateur team of national standing with an income that small. This all goes to show how far women's soccer is from being a viable professional sport. While attendances went up last year it was only by an average of 52 per match, to 1128. A 50% increase in gates at Manchester City accounted for most of the national increase. So, ironically the women's professional game remains totally reliant on subsidy from the men's game; in the case of Man City by a rich man, Sheik Mansour, who comes from a country which doesn't believe in women's rights.

This story appeared in the Times* and Sunday Times but you'll find it in the Guardian. Mirror, Washington Post and loads of other places over the last couple of months.
*https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/sportswomen-more-likely-to-suffer-concussion-2tr9gsbrh
The demise of Notts County Ladies was covered in many places including the Independent, but I got the numbers from Martin Samuel's always excellent Daily Mail column.

Joe Jackson, of course, sang "It's Different For Girls".

2 comments:

  1. Women's football is a better game. You don't get all that fake diving and attention seeking that so messes up the male game.

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