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Andy Gray and Richard Keys made jokes about Sian Massey, a woman linesman (aka assistant referee) not being able to understand the offside rule on Sky Sports over the weekend.
They did it in the tired formulaic way men speak about ‘women drivers’.
And women talk about ‘man flu’.
Some people want Keys and Gray hanged for sexism. Or rather fired. And then hanged.
Society’s official whingers have decided to jump on the bandwagon of comment and hijack it. Mostly these represent spokespeople of publicly funded groups and organisations, who are appalled about a couple of silly old buggers having a bit of banter. They are annoyed because they get paid to be annoyed.
But come on.
Gray and Keys are old school at best. In fact the whole of football is old school. But better that we allow them the odd daft moment rather than we monitor private conversations and broadcast them, as happened here - something akin to the phone tapping scandal submerging the News of the World.
Massey answered the old buffers in the best way possible by performing her duties perfectly. Maybe she should be given a match to referee rather than run the line. That would show Gray and Keys and then subject her to one of last legally allowable areas of discrimination: that of fans and pundits against referees.
You have to also wonder how perfect the Gray and Keys complainers are?
Do the men who have publically worried about Gray and Keys always have pure thoughts? Do they never see a pretty woman and judge her first by her body, do they never do the ‘women driver’ reaction when a woman pulls out in front of them?
And do the women who’ve complained, never speak out of turn, never generalise about men being oafs and idiots, never repeat in their head generalised clichés about ‘multi-tasking’?
Have these pure of thought people never said anything to friends which if it had been sneakily recorded and broadcast they would have regretted?
We have a public life and private one. Legislation is there to protect relations between individuals in the public sphere, if it is used to regulate private thought then we’re in trouble. Or used to monitor every type of private utterance then we are going down an authoritarian and an oppressive route. Now that would be offside.
What Gray and Keys said was wrong but they are the dinosaurs and Massey is the future. At a recent game in which she was officiating she was subject to fan chants of 'Put the kettle on'. That behaviour is boorish, pub banter of the type Gray and Keys came up with. Dull, but not vicious, almost done as male default stupidity. We can't prosecute all those suspected of suspect pub chatter or dubious thoughts. There'd be no end to it.
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18 comments so far, continue the conversation, write a comment.
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This Sian Massey poppet might be better off if she made a bit more of an effort with her looks. She could have at least put a bit of make up on for her telly appearance and her outfit does nothing to show off her figure.
I think Sian Massey must have worked very hard for quite a long time to get to run the line in the premiership and so to say she doesnt know the offside rule on account of her being a woman most likely is personaly offensive. If they were her employers she would be entitled to take them to a tribunal for sex discrimination (and she'd win). This may not be a hanging or a firing offence but lets not pretend its acceptable banter, what they were saying was ignorant and should be recognised as such.
Women liners....What next? monkey Tennis?
I imagine if the private comments of Gray and Keys were heard every week, every ref in the Premiership would be suing for libel.
b
andy gray is a fantastic pundit.lets not over react about this . it was a joke. its time we learnt to laugh at ourselves. honestly,its no big deal
Has this woman come forward and demonstrated a commanding knowledge of the off side rule? Because I find this whole argument pretty pointless unless she has.
Why isn't she at home baking, with a bairn at her teat?
Jeez what about Loose Women...talk about talking about generalisations
You could have worded the vote better - Is a yes vote saying Charlie butterworth is correct in his views or that he's out of touch???
These socialist/liberal "thought police" have been spured on by the last governments policies and even legislation on some areas like religion , these are two silly old fools having some banter just like the silly old misinfomred loose women that pollute stereotypes of men every lunchtime on daytime tv, saying that i think women in any part of a mans game on the football field is asking for trouble and visa versa too.
Yawn Yawn - Bored of this now!!
Why do you keep changing the question that people have voted on?
A bit of harmless fun with no ill intent. What has this world come to ? Some people must live in a bubble.
Haha, does this site automatically change the spoof name of any right wing (maybe anti-left is a better description) comments to EARL OF DIDSBURY?
They are idiots.However I find it worrying that private conversations are being policed in this way.
look guy, it's not about the comments, in private these occur all the time (from both sexes). SKY HAD TO FIND A REASON TO SACK TWO OVERPAID EMPLOYEES, that's why they are gone, like J Ross sometime ago, remember him?
Andy Gray wasn't sacked for his comments, but because footage emerged afterwards of him making ignorant and offensive gestures to female colleagues. Good riddance, the world has moved on from such brainless crap.