When Rebecca Welch became the English Football League’s first female referee in April, the media interest around her appointment arguably overshadowed the game she officiated – Harrogate Town versus Port Vale. And while the coverage was positive, it got me thinking at the time that it perhaps delivered more questions than answers on gender division and equality. Was the reaction to her appointment a sign of how far we have come, and that more glass ceilings – the male-dominated world of football a particularly difficult one to break – are finally being shattered? Or was it instead proof that there remains some way to go before a woman doing a ‘man’s job’ can do so without attracting unnecessary headlines? For Rebecca’s part, she admits to not seeing herself as a trailblazer, and that the word meant little if nothing to her before she received the Football League call.
