Eat. Sweat. Play

by Anna Kessel

  Just as with Rimla Akhtar’s work at the Muslim Women’s Sport Foundation in the UK, the key to Sarab and Intisar’s success is that as women coaches they make it possible for girls to take part in sport. ‘When I work people are always surprised that I am female,’ says Sarab. ‘But most of the families whose daughters we coach wholeheartedly accept us because we are female coaches. The situation would be very different if it was a man coaching their daughters; that would not be allowed. The girls are especially happy when they see us, when they see their coach is a woman. We tell the girls they have the same right to play sport as the boys. But sometimes the girls we meet are so shy they won’t even move. Most of the time it is their very first experience of playing football.’

  Then Sarab says something very special, something that goes to the heart of what this book is all about. ‘I feel like those girls are in a closed circle that they cannot get out of,’ she says, quietly. I know that she is talking about Iraqi society, but I can’t help feeling that it applies to women and girls the world over. ‘Through sport we make an outlet for them. In our society a girl needs confidence to achieve her goals, it’s not only about football. Sometimes the girls feel shy to go after a ball, but we try to encourage them. We tell them, “If you are shy to chase a ball, how can you achieve your dreams?” Playing sport makes you feel free. It makes you feel like you can achieve anything.’

  In my life I have been too shy to chase a ball. It sounds silly when you say it out loud, as an adult. But if you think of it another way, it’s pretty serious. Because if women are too nervous to chase a ball, what does that say about us? What does that say about how inhibited we are, in our bodies, in our minds, in our freedom? I don’t believe that every woman has to play sport in order to be happy, but I do believe every woman and girl on this planet should have the right to move their bodies freely and playfully, free from inhibition, judgement, oppression. In any way they want to. That’s the key to our own liberation. And the sooner we crack it, the happier – and the more equal – we will all be.

  Epilogue

  So how do we create change in our own lives? I’m not talking diets, boot camps, or even joining a sports club. I’m talking about sustainable, incremental change. Change that is do-able, and change that makes us feel good – not overwhelmed with extra pressures to adopt a new lifestyle.

  Sometimes it’s just about making the tiniest adjustments in your brain, being open to new things. Like when my husband asked if I wanted a game of pool and, instead of running in the opposite direction as I usually would, terrified of being awful, I said yes. And so we played – and we laughed. We were both terrible, and my hands shook and wobbled inelegantly as the cue rested on my fingers, and I chipped the white up in the air, and missed the easiest of shots. ‘We must be the worst sports journalist pool players ever,’ I joked.

  And then, something happened. Because I was having fun, I began to relax. The twenty years since I last played pool as a teenager floated away, and in my hands the cue took on a renewed purpose – and I potted a ball. I felt amazing! I punched the air! ‘Are you trying to hustle me?’ my husband asked, grinning. It was game on. Off we went, then, potting balls, missing balls, laughing and joking and enjoying ourselves together. Negotiating the edges of the green baize with my six-month pregnancy bump, I immediately thought of ten-times world champion snooker player Reanne Evans, an inspirational female figure battling for equality in her sport – who once won a world title while seven and a half months pregnant. How triumphant must she have felt that day? ‘I did it for both of us,’ she told me in early 2015, ‘me and my daughter. It was two against one . . .’37 In the end my husband’s skills won over, and he potted the black while I still had three balls on the table. But it didn’t matter. We’d played a game together. We’d been competitive together. And it had made us smile.

  Writing this book helped the changes sink into my own brain. When my daughter asked me to run down the street with her, I stopped automatically saying, ‘I can’t because Mummy’s got a baby in her tummy.’ Instead I started saying, ‘OK . . . race you!’ Out of breath, hips sore, shopping bags bumping by my side, I lolloped along with her. We both laughed our heads off, and the baby was fine. Or we’d be in the park, Ella pedalling furiously on her bike with pink stabilizers, me lightly jogging alongside her in my winter boots, or chasing after her, racing in the wintry rain with my husband, the three of us grinning with delight. And each and every time I couldn’t help but marvel at how physical activity brings such an unadulterated joy, unmatched by anything else.

  Over the Christmas holidays I grew more and more aware of each time our family interacted with sport, as, for example, my husband sat watching Tottenham on the TV, while I, an Arsenal fan, quietly seethed in the background, and Ella delighted in this game of divided loyalties between her mum and dad. She would cosy up next to my husband and cheer her head off – occasionally for Arsenal, just to see the look on his face – and ask lots of questions. She wanted to understand what was happening, and she was most fascinated that adults had to follow rules, enforced by a referee handing out punishments to those who transgressed. ‘I want to be a referee, Daddy,’ she told my husband, ‘or a goalkeeper.’

  Conscious of how much men’s sport is on TV, and of the lack of female role models for my daughter to follow, I took her down to our local athletics track where elite coach Christine Bowmaker, a rare example in her sport of a female coach, had invited us to watch her training sessions. Determined to make sure that my daughter has a better relationship with sport and her own body than I ever did, I was thrilled – and awestruck – as together we watched women and girls thundering around the bends of the indoor track, leaping onto boxes and into sandpits, and powering through circuits in the weights room. Outside we braved the December skies, and looked on as multiple gold-medallist Christine Ohuruogu ran 100m sprints in the cold air. ‘That’s Chrissy O.,’ I told my daughter. ‘She’s won so many medals, and this is how she does it, with no one here to watch, no crowds, no TV cameras, just hard work, running around the track over and over again.’ It’s a lesson that sport teaches so well – how to achieve something, whether that’s running or writing or reading. It takes practice and many days of hard work before you get the ticker-tape parade and the celebrations. I’m intrigued to see Ella looking on so concentratedly, spellbound.

  Inside, Christine Bowmaker’s young daughters are doing their homework. ‘Tell my girls they are allowed to play with Ella,’ shouts Christine, stopwatch and notepad in hand, ‘they won’t dare otherwise.’ We go inside, and there sits ‘big’ Ella, eight, and Indya, ten, diligently writing in their workbooks. I relay the message from their mum and the sisters look delighted to have been given a reprieve. Dressed in sports gear, with matching pink trainers, they tell us about their weekly activities – basketball, gymnastics, football, ballet, netball and, of course, a running session with their mum. My little Ella instantly idolizes them and wants to imitate their every move. Soon they are a gang. Watching Christine’s group practise their block starts on the indoor track, the sisters show Ella how to crouch down for, ‘On your marks, get set, go!’ They demonstrate the different training drills to practise coordinating your steps out of the blocks – all mixed in with Stuck in the Mud, and It, for fun. When Ella gets tired, Indya carries her. They share snacks, and run about. All the while, Christine is glued to her sessions.

  I think back to the hoo-ha over female coaches – particularly mothers – accused of not being able to do their jobs properly: Paralympic athlete Sophie Christenson having to defend her decision to employ a new mum as her coach, or the general consensus that mothers will always have to choose between family life and elite coaching, that there can never be a middle path. And I watch as Christine’s children behave impeccably, not once disturbing their mother, while she gets on with flawlessly juggling the needs of a vast spectrum of athletes – from the world-class demands of Chrissy O., her up-and-coming younger sister Vicky, and the jun
iors just starting out in their careers. This job was made for a multitasker. You need your brain in a million places at once, and being a mother is perfect training for it. It is no surprise that Christine’s coaching career is blossoming, despite the odds stacked against her.

  While Ella plays with the girls I think about how powerful it is for us to be surrounded by all these active women. And I reflect on how easy it was to jump in our car, drive down the road, and find them. No, they’re not on our TV as much as we’d all like, but these incredible female role models do exist, and there is a simple way of bringing them into my daughter’s life. And it’s worth it, because I can see how much she loves it. When we get home Ella doesn’t stop talking about the girls and Christine; she wants to ‘go running with them again, please mummy?’

  Over the next few weeks I make sure Ella has proper running shoes and sports gear. She excitedly chooses a pair of light-blue trainers, ‘They’re just like [the film] Frozen, mummy!’ and a pair of multicoloured running tights. In the trainer shop a sign reads, ‘Kicks look great with dresses, for dancing in.’ I smile. OK, so the message has its flaws, but it’s a start. Even retailers are – slowly – changing. And my daughter loves wearing her trainers with a dress. Best of all, it means she can run super fast.

  I need to do all of this because my daughter is four years old. She is not at school, she does not have PE lessons yet (good or bad), and most of the sporting opportunities I can find all begin at five or six. But kids make decisions about the world long before then. Even as toddlers they perceive and want to enact gendered roles. Unless we show even very young girls that sport and being physical is for them, there is a danger that they will already be dismissing it from the very earliest of ages. From the few things we have done together, I can already see the physical confidence growing in my own daughter: running, jumping, kicking a ball around the front room, wildly attempting handstands, dancing, play-fighting with her dad. I am happy to see her shine.

  And then I remember myself. All of this is meaningless unless I am also part of the equation, unless I am also active. In timely fashion, US athlete Alysia Montaño, famous for competing while eight months pregnant, tweets, ‘Mommas 2 be need just as much support as someone training 4 the Olympics in quest of health & fitness in pregnancy.’ Her message was in response to US Steeplechase champion Emma Coburn, who posted a picture of herself training for Rio alongside her nine-month-pregnant sister on the running machine. Mums need just as much support as someone training for the Olympics, I repeat to myself. Wow. Imagine if our health authorities saw things that way? What a change would be upon us.

  Until then we have, mostly, ourselves to rely on. And each other. The last six months I have spent many hours at my desk writing about the importance of being active, while – frankly – being pretty inactive. Walking aside, I have been frightened to push my body in this pregnancy. I have lost my way, fallen off the wagon, and not really known how to get back on. I contact a fitness instructor who has been advising on the content of the book, and who specializes in antenatal and postnatal exercise. I ask her for some help – this time it’s for me. I also join a pregnancy yoga class, and I am thrilled when the teacher, Anjali, tells us all, ‘Everyone says, “Oh you’re pregnant, you must take it easy!” But they’re wrong, you need to increase muscle tone, strengthen your body to cope with the increasing weight of the pregnancy, and the birth.’ If only mainstream health would adopt the same approach.

  In the early days of January 2016 my husband takes us away for a child-free break in the countryside. We walk through muddy forest together, climb over stiles – him marvelling that despite being heavily pregnant I can still swing a leg over with ease – and laugh, breathless, climbing the hills. In an outdoor heated pool, I decide to take the plunge. I look up at the January skies, the leaves on the trees, and breathe, exhilarated. I have done this before, in London, with friends, at a time in my life when exercise came more easily. We swam all year round, but it was always most special in winter, when others did not dare, when we had the pool to ourselves, just the hardcore swimmers – many of them older than us – with some crows and bare branches overhead for company. One magical Christmas Eve we swam in the snow. Years later, here I am, swimming in deepest winter again. It feels as amazing now as it did then. Just one little swim. One little run. One little walk. That’s all it takes, and you’re right back there. You haven’t got lost. It hasn’t gone away. It’s all there just waiting for you, whenever you’re ready to grab it.

  Acknowledgements

  Since my husband and I first got together, he has always encouraged me to write a book. A decade on and it’s finally happened. Thank you, Leon – so much – for helping me get so far: engaging in endless conversations about women and sport, looking after our daughter, providing pep talks and even paying my rent when I couldn’t afford to. The practical support has been amazing, but that you actually liked the book, and believed in it, made me smile to the rooftops. I love you.

  Thank you to my daughter Ella for being brilliant, so accepting of ‘mummy writing a book’. You inspire me every single day, and it’s a privilege to watch you grow up and tackle the world with such aplomb. I love you very much, and I am very proud to be your mum.

  A huge thank you to my mum and dad for your love, interest, ideas, conversations and support. And for seeing beyond the sport, and what else it signifies. Thank you to my big brother Stef, for ensuring that I never supported Tottenham; I miss you every day. And thank you to Frankie for an education in the Chicago Bears, a shared love of athletics, and showing us all that sport is great at any time in life (even downhill skiing in your eighties).

  An enormous thank you to everyone who has helped look after Ella when I needed to write – mostly my parents, parents-in-law, and my daughter’s nursery teachers. Childcare is a soulless word, but you’ve all proved that spending time with a small person isn’t about shuffling a parcel around, it’s about creating relationships and having fun. I never had to worry or feel guilty about leaving my daughter to write. As a working mum I realize just how privileged a position that is to be in.

  Thank you to my amazing friends who, mostly, are not sports fans but gave me all their enthusiasm, ideas and feedback anyway, along with cheerleader levels of support. Tamzin Davis, all those cups of tea and chats meant so much, thank you for being such a loyal and supportive friend. Thank you Clare O’Driscoll, Sophie Loi-Shaw and Dr Lucy Irving for the love, and Arsenal memories; Elaine Moore and Madeleine Brettingham for brilliant writer’s insights, constructive criticism and running in mud, you amazing women! Sophie Maqsood, Emmi Poteliakhoff, Martha Davis, Anjana Gadgil, Amy Lawrence, Amy Pollard and Kate Streeter, for allowing me to so freely pick their brains about exercise and motherhood. And to my sister-in-law Natasha Mann, who was so generous with her support (and very nearly hooked me up with Mary J. Blige. OMG. All hail!).

  To the wonderful Women in Football board members, past and present, who encouraged me to find my own voice long before this book came into being. And to the many women and men in the sports industry who took time out of their schedules to be interviewed, or helped direct me to great interviewees – I am so grateful to you. Thank you, in particular, Jacqui Oatley, Shelley Alexander, Judy Murray, Kelly Sotherton, Marilyn Okoro, Joanna Manning-Cooper, Sue Mott, Jo Bostock, Christine Bowmaker, Michelle Moore, Kate Bosomworth, Melissa Gaul and Simone Harvey and the boxing mums. And thank you Mark Barden for being so understanding when I needed time off work.

  Thank you to those who set me on my sports writing journey – the inimitable Gaffer, Eggy and the old Observer sports desk, everyone at Guardian and Observer sport who have supported my career since and/or my sabbatical to write this book, and Don McRae who has always been so generous with his time and advice. It was Don who led me to Curtis Brown and my lovely agent Richard Pike, who in turn led me to Robin Harvie, Laura Langlois and all the other great people at Macmillan. Thank you all so much for turning an impossible concept of a
book into a reality, not batting an eyelid when I became pregnant and – best of all – making the writing such an enjoyable experience along the way.

  Finally, to all women and girls everywhere, from centuries past, and in years to come, who all just want to bust out a move. I salute you.

  Permissions Acknowledgements

  The publishers gratefully acknowledge the following for permission to reproduce copyright material:

  ‘Avon Calling As 200 Runners Join Women-Only Marathon’, John Cunningham, Guardian (2013); ‘The mothers of Africa’, Afua Hirsch, Guardian (2012); ‘“What’s a Uterus?” Health Illiteracy Could be the Death of Us’, Ranjana Srivastava, Guardian (2015); ‘How Laura Trott Became the Face of the Women’s Institute’, Anna Tyzack, Telegraph, 26 July 2015 © Telegraph Media Group Limited 2015; from Financial Times, 7 March 2008; ‘Power Games’, George Parker © The Financial Times Limited 2016. All Rights Reserved; Kiran Gandhi, ‘Sisterhood, Blood, Boobs at the London Marathon’, kirangandhi.com, 26 April 2015 © Kiran Gandhi; Lee Hurley, ‘You Won’t Believe the Sexist Abuse STILL Aimed at Female Football Fans. I Do Because I Used To Be A Woman’, Mirror, 3 April 2014 © Mirrorpix; Emma Bridgewater, Toast and Marmalade, Copyright © 2014 Emma Bridgewater, reproduced by permission of Hodder and Stoughton Limited; from The Nation, 14 July © 2015 The Nation. All rights reserved. Used by permission and protected by Copyright Laws of the United States.

  Notes

  1 Allison Glock, ‘The Conversation with Actor/Writer/Director/Producer (And Runner) Lena Dunham,’ ESPNW, 21 September 2015.

  2 Anna Kessel, ‘Martina Navratilova battles the test of time’, Observer, 4 July 2010.