Every Saturday is Ladies' Day OR A Game of Two Halves

So I was in the heart of deepest darkest Kent, performing avant-garde vocal improvisations in a very posh barn, as you do, thus missing MOTD2's highly relevant (to me at least if no-one else, flying the flags for the two Big F's: Footy and Feminism) feature on Ladies' Day at Burnley. I hear from my husband (a member of the Facebook Group Men For Feminism, good lad) that the segment was a rather chortling affair trading on the crusty old chestnut that Girls Don't Like Football.

Investigating further, Ladies' Day - also dished out annually at the likes of Aberdeen FC, Hartlepool United and Stenhousemiur - is the chance for the lasses to be VIP guests at Turf Moor, and pay £60 to be pampered at the nail bar and pop-up hairdressers, eat fine food and toast their gleamingly buxom'ed selves with some pink champagne. Hilarious! Alastair Campbell, a Burnley FC blogger as well as ex-spin doc supremo, mentions how the Ladies were all decked out in their wedding-guest finest for the match against Hull, a fixture about as glamorous as a night out at 'Posh Nightclub' (not kidding. That's actually the name of a club in Burnley. I looked it up.) after an all-you-can-eat-curry-buffet and six Archer's and lemonades. God bless players Chris McCann and Steve Jones, pictured being hugged at last year's Ladies' Day on Burnley's website: they look like terrified rookie gigolos on their first job in a women-only prison.

The website promises 'a day to remember' but it seems to me that the club are trying rather desperately to pad the day out with all manner of fluffy treats and cheaply fizzy delights in order to hide the lumbering white elephant in the room: the FOOTBALL, innit!! If the clubs are trying to tempt the Other Halves into coming to more matches, they're shooting themselves in the foot; woebetide the high-heeled stampede when said VIPs come to another game to be rained on, frozen, subjected to probably mostly rubbish football, a noisy tannoy and absolutely NO manicures, black tapenade or special Aftershaved Hugging Appearances by t'lads. REAL ladies, I have to break to Burnley, Aberdeen et al, are already there. They pay up every week like all the chaps to scream, swear, rib all players and officials, scoff disgusting hot dogs and insipid tea, and watch the bleedin' game. As much as they'd LIKE to be giving Kevin Davies a spot of slap and tickle, they have to settle with admiring (or more than often, not) squinting at them from the high stand in the corner.

Stoke City do the right kind of Ladies' Day, mind. It's a day of trials for women at their Girls' Centre of Excellence. Brownie points to the Potters!

P.S. Hartlepool put on their Ladies' Day to raise money for Breast Cancer Awareness. Obviously this is ok really, retro gender values or no.