LAST Tuesday, 31-year-old Amy Fearn made history.

Running the line in a match between Coventry City and Nottingham Forest, the referee had to leave the pitch because of an injury and Fearn, who has been refereeing since she was 14, had to go in the middle.

It was the first time a female had taken the whistle in a game in the top two divisions.

As she ran onto the pitch, she was met with a barrage of wolf whistles and ‘comments’ from both sets of supporters.

Only towards the end did she take notice, most notably when she allowed eight minutes of added time, provoking one wag to yell: ‘Haven’t you got a home to go to, love?’

‘Water off a duck’s back,’ Amy said afterwards, adding that she had heard far worst, running the line, most notably when she ignored penalty claims from the Luton manager, Mike Newell, in November 2006 during his side’s 3-2 home defeat by Queen’s Park Rangers.

‘It is bad enough with incapable referees and linesmen but if you start bringing women into the game you have big problems,’ said Newell afterwards.

‘This is Championship football. This is not park football. So what are women doing here? It is tokenism for political idiots.’

To his dubious credit Newell (who was fined £6,500 by the FA for his outburst) was only saying what presumably Luton fans were thinking in the stands.
‘Wot! A woman referee? Next they’ll be demanding free nursery care so they can bring their kids with them when they ref a match!’

You can almost hear them complaining. As for Newell’s put-down that ‘wimmin’ should only be employed to referee park games . . . the idea is not only condescending, it suggests that men alone understand football at the highest level.

Yes, let women officiate a Sunday afternoon kick-about, for spotty faced boys and girls, but games involving ‘real’ men? – No thank you. And as for the authorities who have allowed this to happen. Well, don’t let the lunatics take over the asylum!

In the past I have written about referees, women’s sports, men’s sports, the differences between them and, in conclusion, I declared that I would never become a football referee for all the tea in China.

I have also explained that, just as I see nothing wrong in women playing rugby, football and cricket, conversely I see nothing wrong in men playing netball or rounders.

This is not to say that I don’t recognize that men and women are . . . well, built differently and often sound differently (with the notable exception of Margaret Thatcher) . . . but I also maintain that sport should be available for each and every one of us, no matter what age, colour, creed or sex we are.

Finally, I make no apologies for giving this week’s column a decidedly feminist slant, partly because I do feel that sport is male (or should that be testosterone?) dominated.

No-one bats an eyelid if a man referees a woman’s football match, so why should it prove such a cause for concern if a woman referees a man’s match?
Anyway . . . last Sunday I was part of a relatively large crowd at the FB Fields who saw St Paul’s FC beat former champions First Tower 5-3 to win the woman’s divisional title.

A total of 14 Island players were on view and the game (refereed by a man) provided some of the best live action I’ve seen in a football match for some time.
Despite Tower starting with ten players, they were always dangerous and in Jodie Botterill they had one of the best players on view.

Tower captain Kerry Sauvage was also a force to be reckoned with in a roller-coaster ride of a game which had eight goals, two yellow cards, two injuries (both to Tower girls) and which ended, half an hour later than expected, because of injury and with St Paul’s fielding 11 players to Tower’s eight.

What really impressed me was the quality of the game. Having reported on women’s football in Jersey in its infancy, I can truthfully say that the standard, now, has really improved. There was a lot of skill on show and short and long passes were in the main very accurate.

As for goal scoring opportunities? – Well, Sauvage scored with such power that it would have beaten many a top-flight goalkeeper, while Botterill, who later confessed that she hated taking them, drilled home a penalty that Krystal Matthews, in the St Paul’s goal, could only stare at as it accelerated into the topmost part of the goal.

Ultimately St Paul’s won because of their fluid passing and they gelled better as a team. I came away happy with the entertainment I’d watched and happy, too, with the players’ attitude to the game.

Tower, for example, conceded, without protest, that they’d lost to the better team. Sarah Gavey, captain of St Paul’s, not only praised the opposition but wished them well in the future.

I was impressed that only one player needed to be reminded by the referee to watch her language while I was much taken by a player who did swear, using the ‘F’ word, when she was unhappy with a late challenge.

She was just three yards away so I heard her and nobody else did. She muttered her obscenity to the ground, not to the opposition or, come to that, not to anyone else in particular, either.

If only the players in our men’s teams would mutter their swear words at the pitch and not out loud, so all of the opposition and the crowds might hear them.