Vicious cycle: the unspoken struggle of female players

April 14, 2023 - 6:40am

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Now seems like a great time to write about a topic I’ve been thinking about for the last few months. I want to champion women and girl athletes, especially those playing at a high or professional level. The regular difficulties they must manage far surpass those of their male counterparts.

Recently, England’s Lionesses football team released their new Summer 2023 World Cup kits. They have openly changed the home kit from a traditional all white t-shirt and white shorts, to the iconic white shirt paired with blue shorts. For the Euros last summer, which the Lionesses magnificently won (get in there!) the ladies publicly raised concerns about wearing white shorts while having their periods.

As you may know, I have been a professional squash player and squash coach for many years. I run our regional league team and for the last year I have also coached a girls’ U14 football team.

Several weeks ago we had a very important, title deciding match and three weeks prior, I received a phone call from one of my players. She’s without a doubt an integral part of our team’s success, someone who I have known for a long time, and a girl who I like and respect immensely.

She told me that recently she has been feeling ill for a few days while having her period – so wiped out, in fact, that she sometimes needs to stay in bed for the whole day to recover. Her period was due on the day of our big match.

She was not ringing to pull out of the match, but instead to inform me of all the factors in play and for me make a decision as what to do in terms of team selection. I said, if she’s willing to, I’d still like her to play even if she couldn’t perform at 100%. I added that if she really wasn’t well enough on the day then she could pull out without feeling any guilt and I’d be happy to rally around for a last-minute replacement, or if she turned up but was unable to perform well, that was also not a problem – no blame would come her way whatsoever.

After our conversation I told my wife, who was immediately filled with love and respect for the honesty, openness and confidence of this girl to speak to me. This then led to a very open, and often funny conversation around our dinner table with me, my wife and two daughters.

It should not be a problem to discuss these matters with your coach, but realistically, it is. Society has made these topics taboo for centuries – even more so, for some reason, in sport.

(Incidentally, the girl in question turned up to our most important match of the season feeling fine, but as soon as the match began she started to feel queasy. She dug deep and still put in a heroic display to help our team to victory. Immense respect.)

I have two daughters, aged 12 and 14. They both play football, and are both achieving great success in the sport, my eldest in particular playing at an academy level. She trains hard every day whether on the pitch or working-out in her purpose-built gym (her bedroom!). She has serious aspirations of one day being an England Lioness winning the Euros. Obviously, both my daughters are of an age where periods and ‘period talk’ is very real. They are both so ‘flippin’ cool’ about it all! They’re such amazing girls – they’re ‘super cool’ about everything in life. I absolutely adore them.

My wife and I have always made ourselves open and approachable about all topics, especially periods, and our girls have the same relaxed attitude toward it – because essentially, it is a very normal thing and shouldn’t be something that girls and women feel embarrassed about. If they are, this is our fault as society and probably, mostly men are to blame.

It is an important topic to feel we are allowed to mention. Every girl and woman is affected differently, and it can change as they age, some finding it easier and less impactful as they get older, and some the complete opposite. As predictable as the monthly cycle is, it can be completely unpredictable through the course of the teenage years and adulthood. There is no reason that they should ‘suffer in silence’, especially when it comes to sport.

I do not want to suggest sportswomen are more important to acknowledge on this subject, as all women can feel the effects on their mood and performance, and whatever their job in life, they will be required and self-driven to perform well. Whether they are a teacher, solicitor, IT specialist, doctor, stay-at-home mum (or several of the above!), they will all be affected in some way or another when they have their period, and all will have to quietly get through their days giving the best they can. But, I do want to focus on sportswomen because their performances are often so public and open to harsh criticism.

Take the Lionesses for example. In their Euros campaign last summer, coach Sarina Wiegman consistently named the same starting 11 players over the six matches across 26 days. Each one of Wiegman’s players will have played a massively important match while on their period (it’s possible they could have skipped a period if they use the pill, but not many people are comfortable to do this – again adding to aspects of performance management which men simply do not have to consider).

If any of these players put in a bad performance which could have contributed to the team losing, they would have been heavily criticised and held responsible for letting their team-mates and their nation down. Then they would have had to do a post-match interview apologising for playing badly, while never being allowed to say on TV, “I felt like crap because I’m on my period, so leave me alone!”

For our squash playing women, imagine (for example) being Nour El Sherbini training all year with the main focus of winning the World Championship. Nour is currently 27 years old and a six-time winner of the event. With each passing year she’s constantly chasing and creating history to officially become the greatest female squash player of all time … but what if the week-long tournament takes place when she is having her period?

Squash tournaments generally have a match every day, with each one harder than the last – and with no team-mates to cover for you if you make a mistake. Periods can often ‘wipe out’ girls for two or three 3 days. Imagine that?! If she were to step on court feeling nauseous, tired, or concerned about wearing white shorts and then lose in the first or second round – we’d all think it was an ‘off day’ or that she ‘bottled it’ under pressure.

Then she has to sit back and watch her rivals battle it out for the title she so dearly wanted and had trained perfectly for – and she’d have to wait a full year to get another chance. It’s just not something the men have to consider.

I used to coach World No.1 Laura Massaro, and every session she would turn up and give 100%. Her standards and her effort levels never fluctuated. It was never mentioned if she was having her period or not, she simply turned up and performed in the most professional manner possible. There must have been sessions when she wasn’t feeling great, but she never showed it.

In her recent book, All In, Laura talks about periods and how going on the pill helped her control them much better and reduce the ‘heaviness’ of the bleeding. It’s really good Laura talks about this because it is a big decision for a young athlete to make – and it should be open for discussion.

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People are always interested how top athletes plan their training. Period planning is a massive part of a sportswoman’s training plans so it would be an injustice not to acknowledge this just because it makes people feel uncomfortable to read about it. However, being on the pill doesn’t make them go away, and it’s still possible to feel bloated, nauseous, ill-tempered and fatigued – all not great feelings to have when trying to perform in a brutal sport like squash.

Now I have to question myself as a coach. If I am coaching a woman, should I start off by saying ‘Hi, I’m fine if you want to talk about periods by the way…’ That would be ridiculous, and can probably only serve to make us both feel awkward. But as a coach, surely we have to show that we are approachable and we value forming a two-way relationship so that if they want to talk about it they feel like they can. This is a hard thing to specifically strive for, but we have a responsibility as a coach to make our athletes feel comfortable, and to make efforts to learn their performance levels and read their mood – then we must be willing to adjust our sessions if we feel it is appropriate.

So, next time we are watching a female play sport, whether as a fan or a coach, we need to be accepting of the performance we’re witnessing, however good or bad that may be. We need to understand the day-to-day training management that women put in and the possible factors playing on their body and their mind.

This doesn’t even take into account the fact that women athletes have often had to make the choice between achieving high standards in sport but at the expense of becoming a mother. ‘Career or family’ is a choice women have been making for centuries, because that is the ‘either/or’ decision that society has forced upon them.

Nour El Tayeb is a wonderful pioneer in our sport who has had a child in her 20s and then returned to the World top 10 as a mother, which must have been a very difficult task – but what she has taught us is that it is not a taboo topic or a ridiculously radical idea to have – it is not frowned upon – it is possible. It will be tough and women who want to do this should have the support of their clubs, training teams, coaches, partners etc. If we don’t make these ‘women’s issues’ normal, we will remain a neanderthal society.

It’s an exciting time for women’s sport. It’s rapidly moving forward in terms of participation, standard and media coverage. Girls’ football is the fastest growing sport in the UK, and has been for the last 10 years, and even more so since our 2022 Euros triumph.

I see every day how far the standards in football and squash have leaped forward in recent years. The standard of squash played on the women’s PSA World Tour has shot up massively in the last decade, and the level of the Lionesses football team and the WSL (Women’s Super League) is very impressive.

My daughter, at 14, is way better at football than I was at the same age, and I was a very good academy player. The media coverage improves every week. On the BBC website we’re now seeing almost daily articles on women’s football, rugby and cricket. Women’s sport is no longer being left in the ‘dark ages’ so neither should our attitudes toward these athletes. Women’s sport is normal. Periods are normal.

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Vicious cycle: the unspoken struggle of female players

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