Comment: Brazil’s exchange with TalkSport co-host Shebahn Aherne was revealing of the climate women’s football now exists in, where those who hate can hate openly and loudly. Perhaps, if Alan Brazil had the capacity to care, the moment he could have realised he had gone too far was at the mention of his granddaughter. You see, Brazil may be the rolling, often sunburnt, “voice” of TalkSport’s early morning airwaves, who has been hooked off the microphone and sacked multiple times during his broadcasting career, but he is also a family man. For example, the former Manchester United and Scotland striker spends part of his weekends on the sidelines and watches while his granddaughter plays football; an occupation he can apparently hold while simultaneously telling her that nobody would be bothered should she go on to one day play at Old Trafford.
The news that Brazil, who for years has brought drama to his TalkSport breakfast show by appearing to be on the brink of literally bursting at the seams, does not hold women’s football as a priority in his life should not come as much surprise. He would, after all, understand TalkSport’s target market, which judging solely by its commercial breaks stands as a military-sized fleet of men circling the M1 in Ford Transit vans. While TalkSport currently broadcasts live radio commentary of up to 20 Women’s Super League matches a season, plus the Women’s League Cup, Brazil may feel he is better off leaving the discussion of the women’s game to someone else.
Aherne’s robust response to Brazil’s views – she called the 65-year-old a “dinosaur” after he said “people around the world are not bothered” about United’s women’s side – and wider defence of the sport has earned praise, at a time where counter-opposition to its growing popularity and evident success in recent years has never been more open. After all, this was not former Manchester City midfielder and one-cap England international Joey Barton, sitting at home and rattling off sexist and misogynistic tweets from behind his phone in an attempt to earn a quick like or two. Rather, this was a host of a national radio station gaslighting a colleague and tearing down her entire industry while she was sat four feet away.
But, hey, it probably made good radio for some. Certainly more people have viewed online than have probably listened to a TalkSport programme this year. TalkSport, for what it is worth, welcomes opinion and debate, and stood by both Brazil and Aherne. Both returned to the air on Friday – Brazil opening his show with a lengthy discussion about the conditions Ray Parlour encountered on his round of golf the previous day; Aherne interviewing a mournful Jermaine Jenas as he explained the “inappropriate” actions that led to his dismissal from the BBC. It was quite the time for that interview to drop, as Jenas addressed concerns ahead of his return to broadcasting with the station this weekend.
And so the show goes on. Brazil will continue to steer his morning agenda; Jenas restarts his career, while promising to be better to the women in his life. Women’s football will be fine without Brazil’s support. It did, after all, survive a 50-year ban imposed by the Football Association between 1921 and 1971, only for the Lionesses and the Women’s FA Cup final to be selling out Wembley within half a century of that ban being lifted. Those within its bubble care deeply, and those wider fans who switch on to support their national teams at major international tournaments, purely for the love of football, do as well. For those that don’t, move on; there is hardly a shortage of men’s football, nor, contrary to what some may believe, is the women’s game being shoved down anyone’s throats.
But is revealing of the climate that it now exists in, where those who hate can hate loudly and vocally and, seemingly, without consequence, because they are able to claim they are at least hating honestly. It comes in a week where not one but two of the leading players in the Women’s Super League, in Khadija Shaw and Millie Bright, have reported abuse – in Shaw’s case, it was racial, and has now been passed on to the police. It is tiring and exhausting but it will not win.
