Dave Ewing's Back 'eader said:
You raise an interesting point. We had at least four female refs this season, but all of them officiated away games, never at home.
waspish said:
Yep, five minutes sounds like long enough to make a decision in...
I think the issue you've got is that you're coming into the games saying "alright, entertain me" without any sort of emotional attachment to a team. IMO you can only do that if you watch the highest level of the game. I occasionally go to see my local non-league side purely for the kicks, and I feel just a small emotional connection with them because they are my home town team, but if I'm honest a lot of the games are dull as bricks and I only go out of a lingering curiosity that the team might actually do something half noteworthy that game. If I try watching another sport, I similarly can watch it out of mild curiosity but honestly I just can't connect with it because I don't care who the players are or who wins.
This is the issue, I think - especially in the UK where, unlike places such as the US, we are culturally "trained" to only watch one team in one sport and to reject all others, rather than watching as many sports and competitions as we can. If you just go in saying "alright women's football - win me over" you are going to be disappointed because it's blatantly obvious that the state of the women's game cannot be compared to the standard of men's football you are used to, so it's only ever going to seem like a poor imitation to you. If you, on the other hand, went into it by persuading yourself that you were there because you want to watch in the long term to see MCWFC progress from the newbies on the block to be a national and continental powerhouse, and you want to see them win their first trophy, and you want to see women's football every year seem that bit more polished than it was last time, then you might just find that you connect with it because you will have a reason to form a bond. Without that bond, it's just going to be another thing that isn't as good as watching the men's team.