Broadcaster Alison Walker: More people are sitting up and taking note of women’s sport now. We knew this moment would come, it was just a matter of when

As the first woman to cover men’s football matches for Radio Scotland, sports broadcaster Alison Walker spent much of her early career fielding misogyny in stadiums and studios “all day, every day”.

She even felt she had to “dress like a man” and hide her baby bump just to do her job. Now, after England’s Lionesses roared to victory in the Euro 2022 final and the Scottish Football Association recently announced a new women’s cup competition that will culminate at the national stadium, Walker is relieved to see the coverage of, and attitudes towards, women’s sport eventually evolve. Even if she still finds herself explaining to men why women want to play football.

“More people are sitting up and taking note of women’s sport now, which is great. We knew this moment would come, it was just a matter of when…and it’s taken an awful long time,” said Walker.

The experienced sports journalist has covered countless major events for TV and radio, including the Olympics, Commonwealth Games and the Ryder Cup, and has interviewed sporting giants including sprinter Usain Bolt, golfer Tiger Woods and Brazilian footballing legend Pele. Yet forging her early career in a male-dominated industry was tough.

“For years, I was the only woman physically reporting on matches. It was difficult being faced with a sea of men and working in an environment that wasn’t very female-friendly,” she admitted. “Some grounds didn’t have any female facilities, so somebody had to stand at the door while I used the men’s toilet.

“I used to dress unobtrusively, tie my hair back and almost pretend I was a man just to do my job. I even hid my baby bump at first to avoid being treated differently. I often felt like the ‘token woman’ on the team, who was sent to cover sports like curling which were deemed ‘women’s sports’. It was about 10 years before I felt comfortable in my own skin. I went home crying for years but my mum would tell me, ‘don’t you let them get the better of you’.

“It has given me a thick skin and taught me to fight my corner but I always felt I had to work twice as hard to be thought of as half as good.”

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Today things are different. The profile and coverage of women’s sport has vastly improved, according to Walker, who welcomes increased diversity in sports reporting. “Commentating used to be very male-orientated but that’s changing,” she said.

“Women were commentating throughout England’s Euro progress and on the final, and there were more female commentators covering the Commonwealth Games in Birmingham. It’s great to hear a woman’s perspective, plus they tend to avoid formulaic phrases and cliches.

“Crucially, the Women’s European Championships and the last Women’s World Cup were shown on public service broadcasting, which meant families with young girls had better access to these matches and could really engage in the sport.”

Earlier this month, the Scottish FA announced the launch of a new women’s Scottish Cup for 2023. Just like in the men’s competition, the semi-finals and finals will be played at Hampden Park in Glasgow.

For Walker, it’s a potential game-changer, as football is the last bastion women must conquer to achieve a truly level playing field.

“It feels like we’re on the crest of the wave,” she said. “The new Women’s Cup is a massive step forward but it has to be marketed and pushed in the same way as the men’s game. I hope companies realise the huge sponsorship opportunities.

“Women’s football is the last layer to crack, and it is cracking, but it needs help. We’ve achieved success on a UK basis but in Scotland we are still behind. We need the people making the decisions to be brave and see that this is changing; we don’t want to be behind the curve. We need to be proactive, not reactive.

“A lack of quality was always the criticism levelled at the women’s game. Men would say, ‘They’re not good enough, they can’t even dribble the ball’. Now these neanderthals have seen how the England team play and there’s no reason why Scotland can’t have players of similar calibre. We have plenty of young players but they need the right pathways, the right support and investment in women’s football equal to the men.”

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In 2013, Walker co-founded the charity Scottish Women in Sport with Maureen McGonigle to support and promote female athletes, and enable women to access sport at all levels and ages. “So many girls were being turned off participating in sport when they hit puberty,” she said. “We wanted to get these girls engaged in sport at all levels, for their health as well as enjoyment. Whether you are participating, coaching or reporting, sport is a fantastic, exciting world to be involved in. Just think about the emotion on Eilish McColgan’s face after winning Commonwealth Gold. I’d love to see more young girls experience that.”

Walker will host the organisation’s annual conference this week to explore how advances in technology can support women in sport. She believes innovative approaches to tracking women’s menstrual cycles and research into their effect on performance is an exciting development in an often-overlooked area.

“I’ll always remember a male interviewer not knowing how to react when a pro female golfer explained why she had to stop for physio,” said Walker. “She gave this knowing look to the camera and said, ‘You won’t like to hear this but the women out there will recognise I’ve got my period and my lower back is killing me’.

“I loved seeing that, because it does impact a woman’s performance. Developing technology, research and science that looks at the effect of hormones and menstrual cycles and can help athletes understand their bodies better in terms of training and performance is exciting and important, especially for elite performance.”

While attitudes are changing, old habits die hard. Several male football pundits recently came under fire for making degrading comments about the women’s game.

Gary Lineker’s now-deleted tweet, “Kelly is England’s heroine, bra none” – after footballer Chloe Kelly took her top off while celebrating her winning goal in the Euro 2022 final – was described as misogynist.

More recently, former Rangers and Liverpool manager Graeme Souness’s comment that “it’s a man’s game all of a sudden, again”, while covering the Chelsea-Tottenham Premier League match alongside former England international Karen Carney, was deemed disgraceful by players and supporters.

“These attitudes are still out there,” said Walker. “Some just keep their thoughts to themselves but Graeme Souness didn’t and calling him out and saying this is not acceptable is what everyone must keep doing. I was speaking to a former manager last week and he actually asked me, ‘why do girls want to play football?’

“It was a serious question. I replied, ‘why not?’ There was a time when men said, ‘Why do women want to become doctors?’ Is it because they feel threatened or worry that women might be better than them? Why not embrace them and be a positive part of that story and journey?”

Walker remains optimistic about where that journey is headed: “The landscape is changing. I’d advise all broadcasters and sports journalists to cover women’s football because that’s the future.”