There we all were, waiting eagerly in front of our screens, keen to salute Emma Carol Hayes MBE on her elevation to OBE in the New Year Honours for services to football, when Friday night’s clash between Chelsea Women and Spurs was called off.
With the match rescheduled, Thursday’s Zoom press conference (or presser, as we journos snappily call it) was too, and we missed the chance to enjoy the pearls of wit and wisdom that tumble from the mischievous lips of the Blues manager.
Sometimes she’s crotchety, notably with the television reporters who traditionally go first in the journalism pecking order – another sign of the times, and sometimes she shows infinite patience, even with the daftest questions this hack can muster.
But she is always quotable, which makes sports writers’ jobs so much easier. She knows her stuff, she’s happy to share that knowledge and, after a decade in the job, she doesn’t hold back.
If the editor is barking for 500 words of colourful creativity ahead of an important game, and a manager provides 50 words of tedium, you’ve got your work cut out. But when Emma Hayes OBE speaks, you’re guaranteed to have something worth reporting.
So, to ‘services to football’, as the citation reads in the honours announcement, I’d like to add ‘services to sports writers’, for always conjuring up the right words at the right time.
Once again, Covid has cast its shadow. Just when the Blues needed to get their season back on track after a pre-Christmas stumble that developed into a headlong fall, both camps reported so many casualties to the dreaded virus that it felt prudent to delay resumption of the women’s season after the winter break.
It means that after drawing with Juve and losing to Reading and Wolfsburg, Chelsea Women will have gone a clear calendar month without playing when they take on Everton on 16 January..... urgently in need of a confidence boost.
Meanwhile, Chelsea’s promising full-back Jorja Fox is being loaned out to the Championship side Charlton to get regular match experience – a good move to help her break into the Blues’ first team next season.
The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.
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