You may not be aware of #HERGAMETOO but I can recommend it as a significant and dynamic force. It’s an important campaign currently helping to raise gender awareness in football driven by a group of passionate women. It’s just the kind of practise that we working in Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) roles need to embrace, celebrate and promote. EmbraceEDI.org.uk, of course is non stop on this, but how refreshing to see a group of dedicated women also doing their bit.

The women have a simple set of aims around awareness, education, research, developing a sense of community and seeking to champion women in football at all levels. They want to develop a presence at football grounds and sports bars to build a more welcoming environment for young girls and women. Their message is simple – they are seeking to campaign against sexism in football and against online abuse.

So what’s to argue with on those reasoned points I ask?

I am a football fan myself. I hold a season ticket for my local club, Walsall FC, and buy one of their competitively priced team shirts most seasons…! To be honest, I’m not sure if I could explain the offside rule. Also what those referees and linos (assistant referees formally known as linesmen) get up to is often beyond me. Indeed our own manager’s explanation (when we lose) is baffling; I simply can never work out why he used a particular formation. When we win, of course, he obviously gets it right. I wouldn’t have a tactical clue on how to assemble a football team either. I’m just a rather average fan, perhaps more candid about what I do know, but non the less average. But you know what? I know that I really enjoy my football. It’s not just the 90 minutes on the pitch. I find the travel to an away game and the comradery of a home game vibrant and fresh. Footy is just such an exhilarating experience.

Yet when I look around the four to five thousand fans at the Banks Stadium, I largely see a bunch of white blokes. Nothing wrong with that; I always find them a lovely friendly bunch. But what about the women and indeed what about people like myself of non-white heritage? Can the Directors of Walsall FC imagine what would happen if they could add a woman to every white male fan and a person of colour to every white fan? Just think of the combined power of #HERGAME TOO and #BLM? I suspect the ground capacity would be insufficient; they would sell out of pies, programmes and Banks beer before half time. What’s certain, is the club would be financially so much better off.

I may be a tad prejudicial on this subject but Walsall is a very progressive club. Its ownership is held by a local lad who’s done really well, and the club thrives off that. They are active in taking the knee accompanied with a hearty round of applause thanks to #BLM. The club has a Supporters Liaison Officer, who answers all of his emails in what appears to be an amazingly short period of time. The club also publishes #HERGAMETOO posters around the ground. I’m sure the club wants to do more in terms of EDI, but it equally has other priorities such as winning games and getting back to the third level of English football. It needs to survive as a club, the Covid pandemic and I have no doubt a thousand other issues that crop up on a weekly basis.

The secret to this rests with football fans. #HERGAMETOO is a pioneering movement that seeks so little and yet if football clubs can deliver with them, the prize for all is astonishing. We are ultimately talking about embracing our national sport by near doubling the attendance at home and away games by simply promoting equalities. I suspect this is a prize worth investigating. Building on a

platform of what any reasonable person considers the right thing to do to with the massive financial awards as the outcome. Who could not want that? Let’s press our clubs, lets back #HERGAMETOO and let’s be reasoned and vocal about equalities.

In the meantime I take my Walsall scarf and bobble hat off to #HERGAMETOO. Come on the girls…..!!