05 October 2023 , 13:21
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When you visit Jurassic Park you expect to hear the dinosaurs roar.
So why is anyone surprised that 72-year-old Kevin Keegan, a Timex watch in a digital age, doesn’t rate ‘lady footballers’ opinions on the men’s game? And why are we getting our underwear in a twist about it?
Nobody needs to justify a female ex-professional’s right to an opinion on the men’s game. Not now. Not now that we’ve moved out of the dark ages into the 21st century.
So why are we getting outraged that Keegan, a product of an era when opinions were fixed, intransigent and unreconstructed, is offering up fixed, unreconstructed opinions? He comes from a time when football punditry was the sole preserve of white middle aged men. The game has moved on since then with far more respect shown by male ex-pros to their female counterparts in the studio.
These days we enjoy the thoughts of an excellent female cohort including Karen Carney, Alex Scott, Lucy Ward, Izzy Christiansen, Anita Asante, Fara Williams and Alex Scott.
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In commentary, the unassuming Robyn Cowen has become a Match of the Day staple along with Vicki Sparks with Pien Meulensteen impressing on Sky Sports.
The one thing Keegan did get right was that Gabby Logan is indeed an outstanding presenter. As are Kelly Cates, one of the best of any gender in the entire sport, Vicky Gomersall, Hayley McQueen, Jacqui Oatley, Michelle Owen, Julia Stuart and many, many others.
So it is hard to believe we are really still doing this.
Former England manager Kevin Keegan (Julian Hamilton/Daily Miiror)To be fair, Keegan really was a magnificent player, the 1978 European Footballer of the Year and one of the greatest English strikers of all time. But he last played in 1985, when Super Mario Bros was released by Nintendo, we still had four TV channels and the US President was Ronald Reagan.
Keegan last managed in 2008 and he hasn’t even been a regular pundit in the men’s game for 15 years. So although he, quite clearly, hasn’t been living in a cave, he sure does sound like a caveman. The rest of us agree that the world has changed - and that football is adapting to it.
Ask Roy Hodgson, the 76-year-old current Crystal Palace boss who remains living proof of the need not to tar everyone from that era with the same brush.
The culture of entitlement from the last century that indulged men like Keegan is a thing of the past in tv studios run by people who recognise audiences want to see and hear from people they can identify with.
The dinosaurs still exist. They applauded Keegan’s comments during his ‘An Audience With…’ event.
And a few escapees from Jurassic Park recently struggled to contain their joy that the viewing figures on the BBC’s Football Focus show on a Saturday lunchtime had dipped after Dan Walker was replaced by Alex Scott. But by and large we’ve moved on. So while the adults pine for a bygone era, their daughters and grand-daughters are pulling on a pair of boots, inspired by the guidance of the women they've become used to.
As for Keegan, he is a legend. He always will be. But if real life has told us anything, it is that athletes with supreme ability can very often talk out of their tradesman’s entrance when they retire from sport.
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