FOOTIE commentator Jacqui Oatley has opened up about overcoming the backlash she faced when she made telly history.
It’s been EIGHTEEN years since Oatley became the first woman to commentate on Match of the Day.
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The announcement that Oatley would cover Fulham’s 1-1 draw against Blackburn Rovers in the Premier League on April 21, 2007 made headline news.
In an interview with The Athletic, Oatley explained how she had honed her craft while offering live commentary and reports on radio for several years before that.
And the Match of the Day gig would involve an editor clipping Oatley’s 90-minute commentary, recorded ‘as live’ at Craven Cottage.
It would be cut into an eight-and-a-half-minute audio package to air over the match footage for the BBC highlights show.
But Oatley recalled the “stomach-drop moment” when she realised that her history-making commentary job had received a lot of negative coverage and fan fury.
The Wolves fan told The Athletic: “My heart sank. That’s when it really grew legs with the sexism element.”
Three days before her big job, Oatley’s radio alarm woke her up at 7am with the sound of Radio 5 Live talking about it.
Presenter Rachel Burden, who Oatley “loves to bits”, was introducing vox pops from members of the public who had been asked whether Oatley should be allowed to do it.
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By the Friday, the day before the match, Oatley admitted to hardly having slept or eaten.
The 50-year-old added: “My only regret was that I couldn’t be at my best for the most-watched game of my life.
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“I’d love for it all to have stopped and just gone away. But that was never an option.
“I was really conscious that if I’d commentated and people hated the sound of my voice, or they just didn’t trust me to convey what was going on.
“It was purely the judging of my gender. I wanted to do a good job, but also hang around and stay around, not just do it on that day.
“Because people do make assessments of an entire gender based on that kind of thing, which is hilarious and ridiculous at the same time.”
And during the commentary itself, Oatley admitted to feeling like a bag of nerves and that she needed a strong drink afterwards.
It was purely the judging of my gender.
Jacqui Oatley
In his post-match interview, the then-Blackburn manager, Mark Hughes, asked her how it went.
She then walked to her car in a daze, drove home and called Alison Mitchell, the cricket commentator, and 5 Live presenter Phil Williams to arrange a night out.
Oatley said: “I wanted to drink a lot of vodka to make it possible to deal with the final thing.”
She paced the hallway of Mitchell’s flat decided her efforts “didn’t sound too horrendous. I just needed to get through it”.
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MOTD presenter Gary Lineker – who is leaving the flagship show after 25 years at the end of this season – introduced Oatley’s segment.
Lineker said: “After all the publicity this week, the moment has finally come for a little piece of history on Match of the Day.
“For the first time ever, Lawrie Sanchez took charge of his Fulham side at Craven Cottage. Also making her debut, commentator Jacqui Oatley.”
And now Kelly Cates and Gabby Logan will join Mark Chapman as part of a trio of presenters to front MOTD from next season.
Oatley’s career went from strength-to-strength as she became a leading figure in the world of sport journalism.
She was also the UK’s first female darts presenter, covering major tournaments for ITV.
The BBC legend is an Ambassador for Women in Football and was awarded an MBE in the New Year Honours in 2016 for services to broadcasting and diversity in sport.
At the 2022 Qatar World Cup, Oatley became the first female to offer play-by-play commentary of a World Cup match in the United States.
