“I’m on day two — give me a couple of days and I’ll be back in the game,” a West Ham Women’s player on her period said light-heartedly as she walked off the training pitch.
“I thought, ‘Wow!’ How open and progressive are we that we can have that kind of conversation, that the staff member and the player feel comfortable enough to share and receive that information,” says Jenny Coady (pictured above), head of the women’s team’s performance and wellbeing.
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It’s a reflection of how the environment at the club and in women’s football generally has changed.
“We’re setting the tone and pace of what women in football and sport look like,” Coady tells The Athletic from the viewing gallery of their state-of-the-art training base at Chadwell Heath, accompanied by lead physio Elena Jobson and kit woman Lucy Barnes.
There is a strong female presence at West Ham with two female board members: Karren Brady (vice-chair) and Tara Warren (executive director). The director of HR, ticketing and safeguarding and inclusion are also all female, ten women work with the men’s first team on team operations, and seven are involved in the women’s first team. Last year, the club appointed their first full-time female coach, who joined the academy having applied through the Premier League’s coach inclusion and diversity scheme.
The number of women working in the industry hasn’t always been this high at West Ham, however, a microcosm of football. Barriers have prevented women from entering the male-dominated environment.
“Before I came into football I had the mindset that it was a closed door — there weren’t opportunities for me to grow or explore,” says Coady, who used to work for UK coaching across 13 Olympic sports.
A former Ireland international basketball player and coach, Coady would have never have thought to apply for a job in football. But West Ham decided to recruit from outside the sport just as Tottenham Hotspur have done, appointing Olympic hockey gold medallist Helen Richardson-Walsh as performance psychologist.
Kit manager Barnes was a keen player growing up and a huge fan of the game but never thought she’d love her role as kit manager as much as she does. It was only a nudge from the general manager that prompted her to apply last summer. Having worked as a barista at Costa Coffee, she is relishing the opportunity to work in an elite environment and has transformed the dressing-room area, working with the groundsmen and listening to the players’ needs.
“As a lover of the game, to be involved and see what a professional team looks like on the inside is something that I’d never seen before.”
Upon joining in 2018, Jobson took some time to adapt to the banter, deeply ingrained in the culture of the sport and as commonplace in the women’s game as it is in the men’s.
“It’s a complex minefield, a very difficult subject to talk about,” she says, having grown up in Botswana before working for the Netherlands under-18 men’s basketball team.
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“Banter has been in football for years but I think there’s more sensitivity around the subject matter.
“When I moved into football, I was quite sensitive to anything alluding to race or homophobia, and I’m not saying that this has anything to do with West Ham or any club that I’ve been at; I was very sensitive even though it may not have been in that light at all.
“There’s a lot of it, I’ve got used to it. I like banter, I’ve grown to be part of it. But I think there are boundaries.”
West Ham Women have seen a gradual cultural shift, however, especially when former manager Matt Beard wanted more women on his staff. He’s not the only one; England manager Gareth Southgate also called for his setup to recruit more females urgently. Last year West Ham Women had just one full-time female member of staff; this year they have three, as well as a female intern.
According to Jobson, Beard — now Liverpool Women manager — felt female players opened up more to female staff, trusted them and found they could relate to topics such as the menstrual cycle.
“You’re going to change the feeling and the culture around a team purely because you’re a woman and you see things slightly differently,” she says.
“Bringing that open-mindedness and empathy balances it out. Just having that one (woman) can really make a difference. It just offers more to players and to the people involved — it gives them more options.
“They have the choice of how they want to handle something, if it’s with a male or female member of staff. It’s within the staff as well who require different things day to day.”
“We give an insight into what your athletes are thinking, how they’re feeling on their period, for example.”
Speaking about the menstrual cycle, Coady adds: “We’re a very open environment. The coaches try to get involved as much as they can — it’s part of our meetings all the time.”
Jobson hastens to add the importance of gender diversity within a workspace and the benefits that brings.
“I don’t think we should completely eradicate men from female sport! We always talk about getting more females but there should always be a balance.
“I have a male member of staff in my department and we just fit perfectly together. He outweighs my sometimes emotional outbursts and brings me back to earth.”
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The trio want to see more women in each department which will provide a greater diversity within thought processes and processes in general. They’re also thinking about equal opportunities for the future generation.
“Do we bring our female academy on-site at some point? We need to get young, talented players coming through like the men’s system in England,” points out Jobson.
“We should be pushing for that for females to grow as much as possible because if we’re not successful on the pitch, then what are we doing?”
(Photos: West Ham United)
