HUST: Hi Jill! So, our last chat like this was almost four years ago to the day. HGT at Hartlepool had just been launched and it’s great to see how its grown. Just incase anyone reading doesn’t know about your aims, can you give us a quick summary?
Jill: Yes, I think we spoke when we’d been going a couple of weeks! HGT started nationally in May 2021, coming up to five years as a national campaign. It was originally the brainchild of Caz [May] and a few women who she’d been talking to online through COVID. That period of everyone being online really exacerbated the issues that they were facing when they just wanted to watch their men’s teams. They were just giving opinions on what they were seeing on the pitch and getting abuse for simply having an opinion. It wasn’t making the experience very enjoyable. It wasn’t exactly encouraging women and girls to get involved when they were getting all that abuse. So that sort of was amplified over COVID when we stopped physically going to games, and everything went online, and we all know what online is like, especially all the anonymous accounts. And we’re going beyond the old, oh, get back to the kitchens and things. There was that some absolutely horrendous things being said, and at the end of the day these girls on Twitter were 16, 17, 18.
So, Caz had basically had enough of that and saw what Kick It Out were doing. They were doing a lot of anti-discrimination work, so she really wanted to try and make a change within football for women and girls, which she did with the brilliant network of women she’d met over Twitter.
HGT launched with the very popular and well-known video of them holding up the banners saying all the different things that they’ve been abused with. And soon after that there was a deluge of, ‘Yes, we need this!’ The women speaking up were playing in the game, women who were working in the game, officiating, the girls and parents of girls who were wanting to play… they said, this is great. It felt like this was a campaign that was needed across the board to support women and girls throughout the football pyramid, whether you were grassroots, whether you were in the Premier League.
HUST: How did you get involved then?
Jill: The whole campaign basically snowballed from there nationally, a lot of people got interested, a lot of clubs got interested. I saw that HGT were advertising for ambassadors across the country and rather than being a sort of a campaign that has a central office, it developed with people who were in the stands working directly with that club, because they were the ones who can see experiences first hand. They’re the ones who can be accessible to their fellow supporters. They’re the ones who are accessible to the grassroots teams in the town, rather than somebody sat in an office hundreds of miles away, you know, they’re the ones to try and affect something locally. HGT wanted local people in the clubs themselves.
HUST: That’s a really powerful idea. Five years on, does it feel like there has been a positive change?
Jill: Perhaps, in some ways, but we’ve got a long way to go and perhaps social media is just getting worse generally. The main thing we need is people reporting incidents, because we can’t affect change without that. At Pools we’re working with the club but there still needs to be more awareness.
Take stewarding – if someone reports an incident of sexism they need to be effective. There was an incident with some men harassing a group of women in the Town End last season and the stewards didn’t know what to do, they didn’t even know who to contact. It is something I’ve raised again at the Supporters’ Panel, which you’ll be able to read in the minutes.
HUST: If people do witness sexism or harassment, what should they do?
Jill: You can contact Pools direct, through the Supporter Liaison Officer, Sarah Rowntree – she’s more than happy for anything to come into her that way. Our posters have her email address on as well. If you’re unsure, you could always go to our own Her Game Too website and report it that way – hergametoo.co.uk/report. So ultimately, however it’s done, it doesn’t matter, just report it!
HUST: And what kind of outcomes are there when abuse is reported, either online or at the match?
Nationally, HGT’s reporting system has merged with Kick It Out, as they already had the mechanisms in place to report and directly contact the police. A lot of these things cross the threshold into prosecution and police can get involved if certain thresholds are crossed. I think people need to see the consequences of this.
At a lot clubs there are ambassadors like me, who can try and support that local woman or girl that’s had the issue and work with the club to overcome it, to try and make things better.
HUST: HUST supported HGT from the off as it’s clearly so vital, but what’s the reaction been like more generally?
Jill: The club were always quite open to it and are keen. Alex [Chandy] was especially helpful to start with on social media. After a busy start it did sort of quieten down a bit but got momentum again when I spoke with Rose [Stoker] and a month later, we were partners with the club. It’s the same with a lot of partnerships – if you contact the right person, stuff gets done!
Nationally and locally we’re also partners with a lot of clubs at grassroots level, and the majority welcome what we do although some that have girls and women playing maybe don’t see what we are trying to achieve and the support we give. From my point of view, we all need to be supporting women and girls when there’s an issue and need clear female representation. This is something the County FA’s are looking at with their EDI strategies. We do have a bit of pushback but we are available to discuss this and other reservations and, to be fair, there’s a lot of coaches and players who love what we do.
To give an example, I heard from a parent that their daughter was in tears week in, week out, getting picked on by opposition boys because she plays in the mixed team. I was astounded that their club hadn’t stepped in. There’s still this whole world of people putting up with abuse and they just don’t know what to do about it. If you’re having trouble your first port of call should be the club welfare officer, then the league and then the County FA.
HUST: There’s a wider point as well about girls and women participating in sport also.
Jill: Yeah. Take schools, there just needs to be opportunities for everyone to try different sports regardless of gender. If it’s not your thing, it’s not your thing, but you should get the chance.
HUST: The Dedicated Her Game Too match is coming up on 7th March, when we play Halifax. Can you tell us a bit about that?
Jill: I’ve actually just interviewed a number of women for the programme. I’ve asked their opinion on all this, they give a bit of background about what they’ve done at pools, the history of watching Pools, first game, best memory etc, and have asked if they’ve faced any sexism and what they think of the HGT campaign. It was interesting speaking to them, as some hadn’t heard about the reporting side of it. Some had experienced or witnessed harassment but others hadn’t. Every match day, the club allow me to put HGT news in the programme but for this game, I really wanted to get something from the older female supporters.
HUST: It’s really powerful to hear these stories. HUST worked with a LGBT service, Hart Gables, a few years ago, and we asked some people there about their experiences of participation in sport. It was actually a heartbreaking read. I think real experiences really resonate.
Jill: From HGT’s point of view, I’d say the leagues are really starting to embrace diversity but at some individual league clubs the HGT fixture is an afterthought, with HGT advocates having to cobble something together at a few days notice. Huge credit to Pools for embracing it for the past 4 years.
HUST: And at the Halifax match there are a lot of people coming along!
Jill: Yeah, so it’s the fourth dedicated match we’ve done already, which I can’t believe and there is massive demand to get involved. We’re inviting a whole host of girls teams from the Youth Alliance clubs. We’ve actually had to limit places this year – the capacity of the ground just isn’t big enough!
The aim of the dedicated match is to remind people and raise awareness of the issues faced by females in football, really trying to push the reporting side of it. And it doesn’t matter whether you’re watching your daughter playing grassroots or your son might be playing grassroots and there’s a girl on the team – if you hear anything, report it. The game every year is just reaffirming that women and girls belong in football as well and what to do if you are witness to or the victim of abuse.
And I’d also say, the supporter side of me is trying to encourage more people through the turnstiles. You know, if a dad comes along and thinks, oh my daughters always wanted to come to the match, but it’s never felt like the right environment for her, bring her along!
HUST: What can fans do to support the match?
Jill: Inspired by the Match of the Dames group at Altrincham, who wear pink, we have a colour theme… Yellow! It’s the colour of the HGT badge and Pools have had loads of yellow shirts… so stick your yellow shirt on! Or just wear yellow generally, which we hope will look striking in the stands.
That said, we do like the girls and women to come along in their team’s colours because it is about promoting the Youth Alliance clubs, and those girls are proud of their teams.
HUST: Is there also a fundraising aspect to this as well?
Jill: Each year we have a chosen charity and this year it’s a collection for the Motor Neurone Disease Association (MNDA), a really personal choice for me. My cousin suffered from it for five years and passed away seven years ago now. And recently my brother’s father-in-law passed away following his battle with MND. It’s a horrible, degenerative and debilitating disease. Awareness of MND has really been helped by what Rob Burrow and Kevin Sinfield did, and at Pools we all know the legends Lenny Johnrose and Paul Mullen.
People will be able to donate in the ground before the match – the buckets have QR codes, so scan and donate that way – and volunteers will be coming into the Corner Flag and the other bars in the club as well. It’s also online and you can donate on the club’s website, which will run for a few weeks afterwards. [A link is posted below.]
HUST: Reading back over our last chat, one of the things you mentioned was getting female representation on a fans forum at Pools. That’s happened now and all the groups had the chance to met with Landon last week. Have you had the chance to talk about HGT?
Jill: We had an opportunity to speak to him at the Gateshead home game. I asked ‘have you heard of us?’ HGT do actually have a branch in America. He said ‘please imagine I don’t know anything, start from scratch!’
HUST: That a good strategy to be honest! It shows that he’s just wanting to hear everybody. He’s not coming in with assumptions.
Jill: Yeah, he just wants to hear everything that’s going on. We were able to say what we represent and he was open and listened. It must have been absolutely mental, the amount of information he took in that first week, mind!
At the Supporters’ Panel itself, there is Rose and Sarah, who have positions within the club. Julia was there representing HUST and Donna from the Corner Flag, who is actually one of my advocates, So, yeah, we do have some female representation on there, which is great to see.
HUST: Well you’re very busy with the match but after that, what does the future hold. What are your ambitions?
Jill: I think it is spreading the message across the community. It’s something I’ve always wanted to do. I mean, I would like to stress our biggest limitation is the fact we are volunteers and we are non-funded. I would have loved to have made the progress we’ve made in four years in our first year, but obviously it’s just not possible when we haven’t got the money and I haven’t got the time. We’d love to spread the HGT message out across the schools though. It’s something I’ve wanted to do since day one, and it’s something I am developing with a couple of people to hopefully get into schools where we can do little educational sessions, maybe run a couple of coaching sessions and get everyone involved. Basically, girls can play as well! Part of it is that we need to educate boys to know that girls are more than capable of playing a whole range of sports.
I’m grateful to the women who volunteer for HGT at Pools and for others who might get involved, I’ve always been very flexible – people can do what they can. If they want to get involved great. If you find you need to step back, step back.
HUST: From the outside HGT really has done a great job spreading awareness, everyone knows the yellow badge, the club are involved, so well done for all the hard work! Do you have a final word for readers?
Jill: Just to say join us on 7th March, wear yellow, give generously!!
HUST: Brilliant, thanks Jill!
