All Women, All Bluebirds
Two of Barrow AFC’s female fans have worked together, with some support from Fans for Diversity, to create a resource for teenage Barrow fans. Freya Dawes is a football podcaster and Mental Health Nurse who goes home and away with Barrow AFC, whereas Becca Hamilton follows Barrow currently from afar, completing her PHD in American Literature at the University of Santa Barbara. But most of all, they follow Barra Soccer.
Essentially, both articles explain their deep connection to their team and celebrate Barrow’s female fans, local women’s football icons and passionate club employees in key positions in a male-dominated profession.
However, the articles also tackle issues of sexist abuse, both online and on the terraces and the fight for equity in football.
As part of the week, the Bluebirds Trust, who own 10% of the club for Barrow AFC supporters, teamed up with with support of ‘Fans for Diversity’ to highlight International Women’s Day, with the theme ‘Embrace Equity’. Saturday 4th March saw the Bluebirds’ Trust use some of the support to run a discount for our female fans to Walsall. The project is called All Women, All Bluebirds.
This week, Bluebirds’ Trust are also creating a small photo video essay, which will accompany these articles. This will then be shared with secondary schools in the Furness area as a focus for discussion on a range of issues regarding gender stereotyping and prejudice , offering a local focus and a pathway to the Football Makes History website. This international resource offers a wide range of articles, resources and ideas for schools which help link issues of diversity and inclusion to football worldwide. All Women, All Bluebirds seeks to put Barrow AFC’s female fans and young people into the centre of that tradition.
Read the thoughts of proud Bluebirds Freya Dawes and Becca Hamilton below:
The pre-match pint in The Ambrose. The long queues at the ticket office on a Saturday afternoon. The faint sound of Darren Herbert on the tannoy as you approach Holker St. The clicking of the old turnstiles on the Popular Side. The crumbling steps on the terraces. ‘Discoland’ by Flip and Fill. The old tunnel cage. That roar as the teams finally emerge from the tunnel. There is nothing quite like being a Barrow fan.
My name is Freya Dawes and I am a season ticket holder here at Barrow AFC. I first began following the club as a child when we were struggling in the old Conference North towards the end of Phil Wilson’s reign. My family aren’t really interested in football, so I never really knew of Barrow AFC growing up, so when I overheard some school kids talking about going to watch Barrow that weekend, I begged and begged my reluctant dad to take me.
I don’t remember the team we played that day but they were in red, and we got beat. That was me hooked and have been ever since. This was real.
In my early years, football was like a TV show to me, I watched a lot of Liverpool on the telly, but I remember being so happy when I was able to start going to watch a team live regularly. When I was old enough to go without an adult, I’d barely eat any food at school so I could save my dinner money to get a match ticket for Barrow. Then tell my parents I had spent more than I had so I could get some more from them. I thought I was getting away with it until my parents said they knew exactly what I was doing!
I did the odd away game with my dad, trying and failing to get him hooked on it after the likes of Middlesbrough, Sunderland and Wembley.
I got my first job aged 16 and the first thing I bought was a season ticket for Holker Street. It also meant I could start going to more away games, once my parents decided they could trust me to go out of Barrow without them! I remember my first away game without my Dad being Cambridge in 2013; where we were relegated from the Conference that day.
That was also my first away game with my now fiancé. I remember being at work in Pizza Hut on the Thursday evening and getting a message from him saying ‘Get a swap for Saturday; we’re going to Cambridge away’. How can a girl say no to that? Our relationship hasn’t changed much ten years later either, we’re still travelling all over the country to daft places like Stevenage on a Friday night watching the Bluebirds, I wouldn’t have it any other way!
This week marks International Women’s Week, and I wanted to share my experience of being a woman following Barrow AFC and speak to some of the many wonderful women involved in the club. As a young teenage girl, I didn’t see too many like me on the terraces at Holker St.
We all know that football is a traditionally male dominated area, in fact in 1921 the FA introduced a ban on women’s teams playing on Football League grounds, a ban which would last 50 years, with the FA stating, “The game of football is quite unsuitable for females and ought not to be encouraged.” This ban ultimately led to a massive drop in attendances, within the women’s game, as teams did not have suitable facilities to host crowds. It is a long road back!
I have experienced my fair share of sexism and misogyny in my time following the club. I recall an incident at Wrexham away a few years ago, when I stood fairly close to the segregation netting between the two sets of supporters. We scored, and one particularly angry Welshman decided to take his anger out on me and shout a fair amount of sexist abuse including the boring, generic ‘get back to the kitchen love’ insult. It was not the first time I had heard it, and I didn’t bother doing anything about it, however another older lady in front of me decided to report it to a nearby
steward who then removed the gentleman. He then proceeded to kick a gate in anger; then was promptly, arrested, for criminal damage. Beautiful, chefs kiss etc. A rare well done to Wrexham for the way they dealt with that.
There was also one incident of chanting at Dover away when their fans actually named me in this song! I was called a ‘slag’ at Telford away, and there have been plenty of times I have been on the end of the old ‘She’s got Chlamydia’ chant. Yawn.
I write about these sarcastically; but in truth, it begins to grate on you. A few years ago, when we were on our way to an away game at what I think was Borehamwood; we took a photo of us on the bus: me, and about six of my friends, all males. It ended up on one of these ‘Football Away Days’ pages and the comments were vile. Nine out of ten were of a sexual nature, insinuating there was an issue with a woman going to a game with a group of males.
It knocked me to be honest and I remember getting upset and crying on the bus back when I read them. Things like this are often excused for ‘banter’ without knowing the full extent of how it actually makes women feel.
From a wide-ranging survey, #HerGameToo found the following:
· 91.9% of the respondent women said they have seen sexist online abuse towards women in football
· 63.1% have experienced it themselves
· 58.4% have experienced abuse in real life at a football ground or in a pub while watching football
Football is a game for all; nobody should be made-to feel like this- because of their gender. It must stop.
Barrow AFC support Her Game Too and I am lucky that within our support we have some great female role models, young and old, who follow what we call ‘Barrow Soccer’.
Margaret Cooksey is a Barrow AFC legend. She first began supporting the club back in the 1970s and remains a regular to this day. Now about to turn 86 in a matter of weeks, she continues to travel all around the country following her team, in fact this season she has only missed one away game due to ill health.
In recent years she even made the long trip to Dover away on a Tuesday night having been to Dagenham away just four days earlier! I asked Margaret what her favourite memory following Barrow is to which she simply said – ‘I’ve loved them all’.
On the other end of the age spectrum, we have Amber Herbert. Amber is 23 years old and currently in her first year as a season ticket holder at the club. Amber grew up not really liking football, however got into following the Bluebirds through her parents, now she’s as hooked as the rest of us.
She does have family ties to the club however – with long standing stadium announcer Darren Herbert being her uncle. Following her hometown team gives her a great sense of pride, and her most memorable moment following the club did not come on the pitch. Last year Amber completed a Walk to Remember, and one day when she checked her online donation page, she noticed a large sum of money donated: by none other than Barrow full back Connor Brown.
That connection between the club and the wider community, she told me means ‘more than anything that’s happened on the pitch’. Our community too.
However, like most female football fans, Amber has heard her fair share of discriminatory language. Amber attended this season’s 2nd round EFL Cup tie away at Bolton Wanderers, which Rebecca Welch took charge of. Also at that game, I remember that her performance was poor. She ended up being the subject to a lot of stick from the away fans because of this. Some of the abuse took aim at her gender, rather than her decision-making, which was disappointing to say the least.
I mentioned football being a male dominated area earlier, and that includes working within football. Thankfully, times are certainly changing in regards to this, and there is an ever-growing network of women now involved in the men’s game in different roles. This ranges from from pundits such as Alex Scott and Laura Woods, to referees such as Welch and Sian Massey-Ellis, not forgetting Janie Frampton and Wendy Toms, the first women referees to come through the men’s game in the 1990s. That’s progress.
However, a survey by Sports Marketing Surveys found that two-thirds of women working in football have experienced gender discrimination in the workplace. Thankfully, this is far from the case at Barrow. While the majority of the club’s workforce are men, there are three important positions currently occupied by women, this being Alisha Henry, our Chief Operating Officer, Kelly Moxham, our Partnership & Hospitality Coordinator and Alison Jesson, our Safeguarding Manager.
Kelly is Barrow through and through and you can sense her pride in working for the club she loves.
‘I am the Partnership & Hospitality Coordinator at Barrow AFC. This means I help to bring in the commercial revenue via sponsorships etc. I also manage hospitality on match day. I have worked at Barrow AFC for just over three years after starting as a part time admin assistant. I have worked hard to move up to where I am now. It is fantastic, and a real honour to work for my hometown football club that has been a huge part of my life since around the age of 10.
Working in football, I’ve never really felt it to be male dominated as I’ve always worked with females within the club, and we have a great team!’
Last year saw the England Women’s National Team crowned Euro 2022 Champions, inspiring a whole generation of future footballers and supporters, and we were very lucky to have Barrovian Georgia Stanway, who grew up playing football with boys at Furness Rovers before making the move to Blackburn Rovers, as a key part of that squad. This has seen a surge in women and girls playing and watching football here.
Nothing makes me happier than following Barrow around the country; it is refreshing and empowering, to see more women involved in the game than when I first started going to Holker St, and long may it continue!
Freya Dawes
Proud Barrow fan. Proud woman.
***
There’s a photo somewhere in my parent’s house, of me as a baby, lying on top of a blue and white Barrow AFC scarf from the 1990 FA Trophy final. The scarf is longer than I am.
There’s another photo somewhere of me, age 4 or 5, wearing an enormous white t-shirt that comes down to my knees. In the background of the picture you can just about make out the blue and white striped roof of the Ray Wilkie Stand. The shirt reads:
GOING UP WITH BARROW AFC
CHAMPIONS
unibond premier league
1997-98
There are few things in life that remain constant, but Barrow AFC has been a steady stalwart for me for longer than I can remember, certainly longer than before I even knew what football was. I wanted to share my experience of being a female Barrow fan for International Women’s Week, and some of the (many) reasons the club is important to me.
There weren’t many girls like me on the terraces as a kid. I longed to play football just like the lads at school, but FA rules reigned me in. Eventually my PE teacher told me about local girls’ teams. They were fledgling set-ups, often without enough participants to make a full weekend squad, but important nonetheless. I signed up to play and it was a joy to realize that there were more of us who liked watching and playing and talking about football.
Little did I know, my PE teacher’s daughter would go on to win the UEFA Women’s European Championship for her country in front of record crowds two decades later. How times have changed.
I’m grateful to have not experienced much sexism following the club, but at school, kids both my age and older, never really understood how or why a girl would like football.
“You’re not a real fan unless you can name the team,” they’d say. The suckers didn’t know I was a nerd and could rattle off the names and numbers of players like Neil Doherty and Lee Warren and Simon Bishop. They would grumble and wander off, still baffled at the thought of a girl liking the beautiful game. I hope they’ve grown up a little since then.
I also remember being asked by a teacher one Monday at school what I’d been up to over the weekend. I didn’t realise that “Listening to the Barra game on Radio Sheepdip” was probably not the answer they were expecting to hear from a 9-year-old girl.
I don’t remember much about the Unibond promotion season when my dad bought me the enormous white t-shirt, but I remember trying to see over the counter of the tiny caravan at the top of the concrete steps in the far corner of the Holker Street waiting to get a Bovril hotter than the sun. I remember more names like Owen Brown and Eddie Johnston and Gary Bauress.
I (suppose thankfully) don’t remember the turbulence of the next couple of seasons and the financial (and emotional) hangover of the Vaughan Years, but I remember grit. I remember names like Scott Maxfield and Mark Salmon and Nicky Peverell. “We need a crunching centre-half,” my dad says (every transfer window). “Someone to cause a bit of havoc. Another Humey or Housham, you know?”
I remember being jealous of my dad’s yellow Nike replica shirt, with the big black stripe and blocky and peeling CHAS KENDALL LTD sponsor letters across the middle. I saved up my pocket money and managed to get a bobbled blue and white ex-player/blood shirt with a wonky CANALTIME print across the front for a fiver about three seasons after we’d played in it. It was heavy and plasticy and I think my parents were convinced it would combust if I stood within thirty meters of a flame when wearing it, but I loved it. I think for a while, I slept with it on the bed, thinking about my name on the back if Barrow were ever to have a women’s team. I loved wearing it on a Saturday afternoon, squeezing it on over a t-shirt and a jumper and a coat so I didn’t freeze to death trying to figure out what was happening on our slightly boggy, uneven pitch (woe betide any team trying to take a corner in the winter months from the bottom of the slope, against the wind).
Tuesday nights were Holker Street nights, rain or not. I remember being absolutely freezing one night and repeatedly, vocally, complaining about it (as kids do.) We were 2-nil down, possibly also down to ten men by that point, and I think my Dad had had enough of both me and the team so dragged me off home. By the time we walked back we’d won 4-3 – the infamous Neil Tarrant thirty-yard screamer sealing the deal in the FA Cup Fourth Qualifying Round replay. I’m still surprised my Dad took me back after that, but he did and I am grateful.
I was a ballgirl (the only one) at the ground for a season or two. By that time, we lived in Morecambe, so every home game was, technically, an away game. Fifty miles north, with Radio Cumbria on from half past two on a Saturday, and then fifty miles south, with Radio Cumbria on again until they started talking too much about Carlisle or Workington. A ritual, a habit; sweet listening if we had three points, but torturous if we lost.
My first ballgirl “shift” was the infamous 2006 fixture against Bristol Rovers. I was allocated the Holker Street end, close to the popular side. “Run for the ball if it’s a Barrow throw in, walk if it’s the other team,” I was told before kick-off. It turned out that the Match of the Day cameras had other things to focus on apart from me huddled on my tiny stool in the torrential rain, but some of the other lads who’d been ballboy-ing for a while were a bit miffed that a girl got the spot where they’d be seen on TV rather than them.
I foolishly went to someone’s birthday celebration on the night of the 2007/08 play-offs, when our 20-match unbeaten run took us to play Stalybridge in the final at Burton Albion. I had no phone signal inside the pub and drove my friends insane running outside every ten minutes to see if I had any texts to update me on the score:
“What is wrong with you – do you not want to be here or something?”
“Uh, nope. Just… checking on the football. Happy birthday, by the way.”
My “dedication” was perhaps cemented in our trip to Wembley the following year. On the way in to the stadium, buoyed by the marching and chanting of thousands of Barrow fans, I wasn’t really paying attention to where I was walking. My ankle rolled with a hideous crack and the next thing I knew I was being hoisted back to my feet.
“Christ, don’t look at your foot; it’s bending the wrong way. We’d better find a paramedic…”
After a dizzying trip inside the Wembley medical suite (and a quick wave at the Barrow changing rooms on the way past) I was told I needed to go to hospital. Something was most definitely broken.
“Alternatively,” I winced, as the (female) paramedic pushed and pulled my ballooning foot, “Can you ply me with a slightly-higher-than-recommended dose of painkillers and wheel me pitch-side so I can watch the game? And then I’ll go to the hospital. Promise.”
She looked at me like I had three heads, let alone a foot twice its normal size, black and blue, and pointing out at a sickening angle. “…Please tell me you are kidding?”
My dad pulled her aside. “I guarantee you, she is not. Divvy out the ibuprofen, kick-off is in five, chop chop.”
I lied when I said that the tears in my eyes were due to pain when, on minute 107, Walker’s strike flew into the top left corner. I was gutted I couldn’t go to the victory parade because I was instead being fitted with a cast and learning how to hobble on crutches.
Since then, I’ve lived in Manchester, Cambridge, and further afield in Australia and, currently, California. But wherever I’m at, come 3pm on a Saturday, my radio is on, listening to the soccer. Since promotion back into the Football League, it’s been great to see more kids at home games, and feels even better to have a solid and growing female fanbase too.
When I’m in the UK, my partner has started coming to the games with me and my dad. It was a great commitment to inclusion to see when the club launched their LGBTQ+ supporters’ group last season – something I never expected I’d see. Maybe one day I’ll have a little one of my own, and will be able to take a photo of them with my 2010 scarf and Dad’s 1990 scarf, letting them know that, boy or girl, they will be welcome at Barrow AFC for years to come.
Becca Hamilton