Off Air... with Jane and Fi - Private download gone public (with Sue Campbell)

Episode Date: March 6, 2025

Jane and Fi somehow manage to link the gendering of chickens to bedside chocolate bars... tune in to find out how. And Jane speaks to Sue Campbell, Former Director of Women's Football at the FA, about her memoir 'The Game Changer'. The next book club pick has been announced! 'Eight Months on Ghazzah Street' is by Hilary Mantel. If you want to contact the show to ask a question and get involved in the conversation then please email us: [e-mail] Follow us on Instagram! @janeandfi Assistant Producer: Hannah Quinn Podcast Producer: Eve Salusbury Executive Producer: Rosie Cutler Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Mine are still in... Oh, actually they're not. They came out in my 20s. Oh, the doctor didn't offer that to me. Oh, this is weird. Well, they must have thought as a mature woman, you wouldn't want to take those answers home. But they were wrong. Right, welcome to Our Friday, which is Thursday. And it's lovely to have you on board. Salted caramel is so over, says Cevda. The new hot take is pistachio. I watched a TV chef make a cake inspired by the current Dubai chocolate trend. I don't know what that is. Now the Dubai chocolate trend, I have seen something about that. It's something that you encase pistachio and other nuts in a chocolate covering.

I haven't done it any justice. Anyway, Sevda goes on to say, he used a jar and half of pistachio spread and was happy to tell us we could pick up one jar in the supermarket for seven euros Seven euros a jar and that was just for the icing bit of the cake regarding what to call stuff I'm refusing to say pantry. It will always be the press and Finally have a little bit of sympathy for my seven-year-old nephew who asked me to put a wrapper in the trash He was informed a bit too falsely by his dad that we have bins in this country,

which is Ireland. Now the press, gosh, I have heard that. I've heard Vogue Williams call a pantry the press. The press. So it's a very Irish thing. But yeah, but where, why would that have started? Well would it have been where you kept the mangle and the press? So it's a reference to the actual instruments that were inside a pantry. Oh I see, okay. Right, well let us know, Scepter. Get back to us please. Yeah.

And anyone who can be just a little bit more informative about the Dubai chocolate trend. What a time we live in that you can have such a thing as the Dubai chocolate trend. Whatever it is, I'm not drawn to it already. And I can't, I don't really, I like a pistachio, but I'm not gonna go crazy for a pistachio. No, I don't, no, absolutely not. Earlier in the week, we mentioned Rachel, whose Ab Fab Mom wasn't that keen on the races, but always went to Cheltenham so she could secure

a lovely spot in the champagne bar and while away the entire day. And I did ask, because Rachel asserted that her mum used a kind of funnel to drink the champagne and sure enough she has attached it. I'm still in shock that you actually read out my original email. She said it made my day. Still trying to get mother to listen. This is proving to be a technological barrier.

Yeah. Attached is the picture of the bottle of champagne with funnel attached. Can you see that, Fee? I can. Very smartly dressed. Yeah, very smartly dressed. I think that you're still going to have a bit of fizz back on the champagne, aren't you? If you ever try and drink champagne from a bottle, even using a funnel, it just blows up in your mouth. Oh, that would be a very real danger.

She says computing real dangers. I mean, yeah. As Rachel goes on, as far as ab fab stories about my mum go, there are too many to mention, but dancing on the table and drinking champagne isn't just a poster in my mother's house, it's a genuine activity. It's her 80th this year and we're having a party, of course we are, very much something to look forward to. Her 70th included her riding into it on a horse and being the last person on the dance floor, very upset that the party had to end at some point. Wow. That is so impressive and I just want to just open it up to other people here.

I am fascinated by people who enjoy parties and where would we be without them by the way but can I honestly say that I've ever looked forward to a party. I know but you don't like people. I mean you genuinely don't really like people. Whether it's my own or another big shindig, I don't know. I think there are people for whom a shindig is the idea of heaven, Rachel's mum. And what's more, she goes along, presumably to other people's functions too, and really plays a part at making them swing.

And afterwards people say, well, that, you know know wasn't it great to see Rachel's mom on the dance floor giving it some welly and I'll just never be that person but I mean I really am fascinated by those people who just it's their idea of complete heaven. I'm quite interested to know whether your party and changes throughout your life are you just always a party person right from the get-go and that just carries on. Right from the pineapple chunks and cheddar cheese. And so you know you love to party or a disco or a rave when you're in your 20s, you love a big crowd in your 70s, you're there last on the dance floor.

And then does that mean that you'll always enjoy a good wake? Yeah. You might be the same people, you're right. Right from the days when you're pinning the tail on the donkey to when you're whispering in corners about, hey, you didn't really like them but hey, these sandwiches are good. Is that the same person? Yeah, I've got a sneaking suspicion that there are some people out there

who kind of grow into parties or grow out of parties. I definitely have friends who really partied in their 20s and 30s who are so happy to just be indoors by 5.30. Lights off pretending not to be home. So no one can pop in. And vice versa, people who've really kind of come out of their shell in their 50s and 60s. So tales of those would be great. What don't you like about a party? I think it's just, I'm just really, I always like coming home after the party and I like the next day analysing the party and

always speaking to at least one other person who was there to talk about what happened at it. So there are good aspects of it. I think it's just the going, right? Okay. Sometimes as well, I always feel I have to wear a heel. It's just uncomfortable for me. But that's the other thing, isn't it? When it becomes a little bit of a struggle to hear people, you start to really hate parties. Well, that reminds me of course, I can't stand the drinks party thing. I just don't go. No, I mean, I think if you're in a low ceilinged environment, and you're right, and particularly, let's just be honest, I think if you're in a low-ceilinged environment, and you're right, and particularly, let's just be honest about it, if you're short, it can be a real problem to hear people, can't it?

Taller people have to bend down to address us. We have to really force our neck muscles so weak. It's just really tough. That does remind me, we're now a week away from my ear syringing, which took place last Friday. I've got to say. I mean, it does speak volumes for my social life. I've got to say, I mean it does speak volumes for my social life that I was, as I think I said, I was genuinely looking forward to the syringing

and the woman who did it was, she was lovely actually, really nice chat with her, but it was bloody painful. I know you told us. I mean it was just, have I already mentioned this? Yes. What on the podcast? That you holding on to the sides of your chair in yeah I don't think it was actually in this environment oh had you told me just I think I told you as a friend in a private download yeah in the private post weekend down can we have a public download well I'm just you know you're absolutely right we should never speak unless we're on the money never never do it no unless the clock's running when we shouldn't go anywhere never go south of the money. Never do it. Unless the clock's running, we shouldn't go anywhere.

Never go south of the conversational river. But I defy anyone, and this is a terrible thing to say, I defy anyone who's had that done, who doesn't want to see what's come out. Oh, I'm with you on that. Whereas I think as I told you, my friend Helen kept us on display so you could ask to see it. I'm now worried about whether we have talked about this on the podcast or in IRL. Anyway, let's just keep all this in. This is the struggle. No, keep it in. Where did she keep it? What? Where did she keep it? Little Josh took it home with her. So do you remember if you ever had your tonsils taken

out as a kid, the doctor always said, do you want to take them home with you? I think my sister kept hers for a while. Mine are still in... Oh actually they're not, they came out in my 20s. Oh the doctor didn't offer that to me. Oh this is weird. Well they must have thought as a mature woman you wouldn't want to take your tonsils home. But they were wrong. You'd be sashaying into times towers with a beautiful bit of jewellery made from your tonsils. So that looks interesting. So your ear syringing, I thought, was meant to not be painful because you've been applying drops in your ears. But this turns out not to be the case. Well, thank you very much, Doctor.

Yes, I had been putting in the olive oil drops and because I grew up at a time when you could only get olive oil at the chemist, I've now morphed into the kind of human being who has flavoured olive oils at home. Jane is 125. So you have to buy, and I think this is a con job by the way, you have to buy little drops, job drops, little bottles of olive oil drops. Oh don't be silly, you just use the stuff that's on your kitchen counter. The doctor said you need, or the practice says you need to go and say, of course you

can, I've now thought about it and of course, I mean probably not a flavoured one. I mean no one wouldn't chilli olive oil going down your logger would you? Or would it not matter? I don't know. But anyway, you fell for it. You bought the tiny bottle with the dropper. You put the drops in and you were experiencing some difficulties last week because the drops had made you even more deaf. Well that was the problem I did say last week. I only heard about the 50% of the radio program I'd been involved in. Well you were lucky.

I'd really enjoyed it but I couldn't hear the rest. And then you got there. So much better this week. Yes, well worth doing. But it's really what I want to know from people who understand this stuff, why some people are very against ear syringing. I think it kind of was in fashion and then it fell out of favour and I think some practices will do it but not others. And you get the likes of boots charging you 60 quid to do it in one of their super stores. Is that both ears?

Or 60 quid per ear? I didn't inquire. I think it must be 60 quid the lot. OK. But it's all better now. Pardon? I should have had to do that tonight. No, it's so much better. In fact, I left the surgery thinking, God, bosses! They're so noisy! They're so noisy! They really are. Anyway, yeah, I've adjusted.

Excellent. And you didn't keep the gunge that came out, or you did? I had a bloody good look for you. You had a look. But I didn't keep it. How much came out? So god's sake! Pea-sized or more? Oh no.

More? I'm going to say a couple of quite substantial garden peas worth. Really? Yeah. So like a broad bean. That's in both ears. Good lord. I know.

I wonder I couldn't hear a flaming thing. So every time a producer would ball in my headphones, shut up, stop talking. I mean it's been going on for years by the way in every place of employment I've ever had. I just genuinely don't think I ever heard them feeling... Yeah. Well let's pretend that that hasn't changed. Incoming, thank you.

Thank you very much indeed for sharing that with the group. Incoming from Jill about UTIs and estrogen. Love the pod and often the live show. When's the live show on, Jane? Monday to Thursday between the hours of 2 and 4pm. And we just want to emphasise it's available on the Times Radio app. It's entirely free. And we are live. So when you think about what cobblers we come up with on this podcast, hear us discussing geopolitics live in pretty much the same way, four days a week, and without over-egging an

already quite well-baked pudding. This is quite a lively time for the world. What was it Trump described the Middle East as the other day? A something neighbourhood? Oh, I don't want to repeat any of his bon-mos, Jane. He just called it a rough neighbourhood. I mean, eat your heart out. So FDR. Yeah.

Yes, the night before last, it wasn't a State of the Union, but it was basically a State of the Union but it was basically a State of the Union address you know when when he went off on his huge thing about eggs now Joe Biden had caused an increase in eggs that nobody on earth had ever seen before just like alright they got avian flu haven't they that's why the egg prices have gone up. But now everything's going up. It is. And we will consider that on the live program between 2 and 4. Just to bring it back. Jill continues, I'm the same age as Jane and also from the North West but now I'm Peterborough.

I thought it was great that the issue of UTIs and postmenopausal women was raised. Can I recommend this piece which taught me a huge amount about the subject? If you type in, millions of women are suffering who don't have to, then this piece will come up. I've been happily on non-oral HRT for several years now, no plan to change that. Here's the really interesting bit, Jane. My 86-year-old mum was on the old stuff until the big scare in the mid 90s when it was denied to her. On reading the above article my younger sister and I spoke with her about starting to use vaginal estrogen

to help protect her against these infections and possibly it might also help improve her bladder continence which wasn't the best. Happily she succeeded in accessing it via her GP and has been using it for a year plus and she thinks it really has improved all of those issues. Oh that's good. Yeah. So do take a look at that. I don't think we're going to, we're not going to do huge amounts on UTIs over the coming days and weeks but we really appreciate that it's such an enormous subject and there just is some really good medical advice out there now and replacing your hormones as they

diminish definitely seems to help an awful lot of women. We're not doctors so we're not saying you must do that. But I think it's okay for us to say you shouldn't be expected to put up with endless UTIs. Absolutely, absolutely and so if you've been fobbed off as that's just what happens to women of your age at the doctors, there is just so much more evidence now that you know you can buy stuff without even being on prescription at a pharmacist that might really help you out. So thank you to everyone who's written in on the subject. Yes, Housewife 49 which is that Victoria Wood drama that I mentioned that was about the mass observation diary kept by a housewife who was 49.

Lynne in Lancashire, from Lancashire, now living in Cumbria says that program Housewife 49 was actually set in Barrow and Furness which was then Lancashire, nowadays Cumbria although some scenes were filmed in Yorkshire. Crikey Lin! Right so it was set in Barrow which moved from Lancashire to Cumbria and some scenes for Housewife 49 were filmed in Yorkshire. Right but it's such a good watch that, really really moving, very sad in some ways but just well worth a look. Where you'd get it these days I don't know. I wonder if it's on the ITVX. Anyway, very good. Because Victoria Wood didn't do an enormous amount of dramatic acting, did she? No.

But when she did she was absolutely brilliant. And that reminds me, we've got noted thespian Jodie Whittaker on the pod next week. Yes, I'm going to record her in a couple of moments time, just to be completely transparent about the way we do our business. Belle says, Fee, what to do with buttermilk? Use it to marinate chicken pieces. Transformative, and you will use a satisfying amount. When you marinate chicken pieces with something like buttermilk,

do you then just chuck the buttermilk away? You're just going to use the chicken pieces with a kind of light coating of buttermilk on them. I never really understand marinade. So do you always, you soak things in it, in a substance? Yeah. Presumably, I always thought you did then chuck it away because it had done its work. Yes. So what would that leave? Does it just make the chicken plumper? More moist. I think moister and softer.

Yeah. Okay. Well, I'm going to give that a go over the weekend, honestly. I think I've got 12 pots of buttermilk. So I'll give you all of it. Can it be frozen free? Well, I have just shoved some of it in the freezer, irrespective of whether or not it can be. It has been. And it'll come out somewhere and it'll get cooked with and nobody will be any the wiser. I think we've got the measure of you. You're a woman who freezes buttermilk and depends on another person's ring doorbell. And you have absolutely no shame. You go about your business, you look very dignified in many ways. But there's a lot going on beneath the surface.

I couldn't park in front of that particular house yesterday because the owner of the house had parked there. Oh, that's just pure selfishness. What are you doing? That's my parking space. God, honestly. I've got a friend coming to stay this weekend. He's got an electric vehicle.

So already the conversations have started about where are your charging points? Which app will I need? And I don't have an EV, so I have the same issue with my sister, she has an EV. The tension surrounding it, it's just off the scale. Actually whether or not in London you would be bold enough to thread an electrical flex out of your window and leave that overnight, which is not a very wise idea, especially obviously from a ground floor perspective. So it is so tricky. And all of the, we were talking about this, weren't we, with Adam Shaw, our business correspondent, Mondays at about 3.45 on the live Times

Radio show, which you can hear on the free Times Radio app. And he was saying, and he's such a canny bloke and you know really across technology He's got an EV and he said they just the amount of apps that he's had to download in order to be prepared What's that the parking apps? Yeah, but it just seems really daft that there isn't one Universal app that you can use that then spreads off into all of the others, but that would drive me bonkers Yeah, I've got enough app anxiety anyway so if I'm going to put range anxiety and the cost of electricity anxiety and app anxiety all together I'm really sorry I'm hanging on to the petrol Skoda for as long as it can make its way around the streets

of London. It is of course the Skoda Monte Carlo. I guess we need to emphasise it's not just any any Skoda, they literally called that one the Monte Carlo, which what was it they used to say about Monaco? Who was it who said it's a sunny place for shady people? Yeah. And it was Noel Coward, was it? I don't know. Is that what they say about your Skoda? I don't know Monte Monte Carlo, it's, I mean, it's certainly, I enjoy driving it, Jane, but I don't think... Sign her up for a car show. I enjoy driving it. I never really get the feeling, you know, that, I don't know, I don't immediately feel I'm on my way to a premiere. I'm not channelling my inner David Niven whenever I get out of it. Are there many in Monaco?

Monte Carlo? Monte Carlos? Well, the Skoda Monte Carlos. Is in Monaco, isn't it? Yeah, I mean, I don't think that there's a single Skoda. Monte Carlo in Monte Carlo. No. OK. Monte Carlo is in Monaco, isn't it? I think so.

It's not in France. I'm entirely sure. Yeah, it's the capital of... I've never been to Monaco.? I think so. I'm not entirely sure. It's the capital of... I've never been to Monaco. I don't know. I'm just going to... Yeah, I'm sure it is. So, look, while you do that, I'm just going to head over... We are so hopeless.

I don't want to make... I don't want to commit because Dungeness and Dunkirk, or whatever it was that we got wrong, has stayed on to haunt me. It is in Monte Carlo. By the way, it is in Monaco. The temperature there at the moment is 13 Celsius and partly cloudy. It's nicer here. Yeah, we're having one of those weekends in the UK where the newspapers will make merry with those idiotic headlines like, hotter than Corfu, hotter than the beef. Good morning Jane and Fee says,

kind regards Sue, thank you for the space you create I've been a listener for years this is my first email never be shy. Sue wants to tell us from the land of the America about progressive content creators in the USA people like Brian Tyler Cohen and podcasts such as Pod Save America. Now I listen to that. Yep whose young presenters. Did you know this used to work for Barack Obama when he was president? What I'll say about them is they give off maximum huff

and indignation at the moment. They are really losing their fruit about everything that's going on. There is a lot of masculine energy in that podcast. And so I can only take about 20 minutes of it, but it's well worth a listen. OK. Brian Tyler Cohen, have you come across? No. Okay. Sue would like to hear Brian on our program. We'll certainly look into it. His book, Shameless, is a passionate and forceful critique

of the modern Republican Party who are standing by and letting the wrecking ball go unchecked. That's Sue's opinion. We remain really balanced on this podcast. No, we don't. MSNBC is an insightful political commentary TV channel offering in-depth analysis of the news and fact checking. Rachel Maddow is an excellent host and commentator. We have to find the other voices who are fighting to be heard in America. Sue, thank you for all of that. I'm going to go in search of shameless actually. I find the path of the Republican Party very interesting at the moment,

Jane, because it is that thing that we always say, don't we, about how to get male behavior, bad male behavior to change. It is just easier for a man to call out another man, the type of man who's being really horrible and misogynistic and nasty than it is for a woman because that type of man just ain't listening to women, that's where the problem is. And I think within the Republican Party, it is more likely that a sense of normalcy will be regained if people within the Republican Party do quite a bit of knocking and are quizzical and are asking for verifications then it will be for any opposition to do that because the gap is already so wide so I'm very interested in what's happened there because there are many really decent

Republicans and then there are some who aren't. Indeed. No, you're quite right. This is from Sasha. Your conversations on using different words for rooms in the house reminded me of when I first moved to Australia. Now in department stores,

they actually have something called the Manchester Department. Did you know this? I'd never heard of this before and it's fascinating. Yeah and she was obviously baffled, Sasha, by this. It's what the Aussies though call bedding. It goes back to the olden days when cotton sheets were sent over in large packing boxes and had the place they were sent from stamped all over the box. So Manchester, the name stuck and has been forever linked to bedding. Who knew? If you get a spare moment, she says, look up a video of our premiere,

a man called Roger Cook, calling JD Vance a knob in a televised interview. It's a classic moment. Right, so he was asked to complete the sentence. JD Vance is a fantastic pause. Nob! It was a fantastic pause and he went, no. Well, some people have gone around erecting advertisements on British bus stops. Have you seen them? No, what do they say? Elon Musk is a bellend. Fantastic piece of graffiti on one of those electricity boxes just down our street

the other day which just said Ian Beale wagon wheel. I've seen that for years. Ian Beale the EastEnders character. Yes. And it was fresh graffiti. I just thought what? What's going on? Okay. Is he back? Is it 1984? I don't think he ever went away, I don't know. They had a 265th anniversary or something, didn't they, last week? Oh right, no doubt there was a murder, or was the Queen Vic blown up? I think both things happened and it was featured on The One Show. I mean, that's what you get for any anniversary, doesn't it? That's golden. You get a special edition of The One Show dedicated to you. Just one more if you don't mind. Greetings, Jane and Fee.

Talking of eggs and hens, are they the same as chickens? Reminded me of a woman who used to work for us as a sewing machinist. She'd get to us at seven in the morning and that was after she'd done in a few hours in a factory where her other job was sexing chickens. From memory, I think that involved turning them upside down and examining their bits, then separating them, males in one box, females in another. This was in Norfolk. We'd just moved out of London.

It felt very exotic to us townies. Not the kind of thing you come across in Kennington. No. So I suppose, thank you, Marie. Do you, I suppose you must have to, let's be honest, you must have to turn a chicken upside down to sex it mustn't you? Yeah, and you don't want to, you don't want to let a, I can't say this without you laughing. Well you don't want to let a cock run loose do you? Right, bedroom chocolate, not I suppose, unconnected. This is from Sally, I'm a long time listener but first time emailer.

I was surprised to discover something my 83 year old mother has in common with Meghan Markle. Well it's the Duchess of Sussex now. When my sister or I go to stay at her house, and I love this, there's always a chocolate bar waiting on the bedside table for each of us. She calls it bedroom chocolate and the joy of it is that you don't have to share it with anyone else and you can have it when you like. My mum sometimes gives herself a bar as well for good measure. Back in the 80s my dad would carefully cut a finger of fudge into five equal pieces to share, so

I think we quite like having a private supply. Perhaps Mechans guests also enjoy having a whole bag of peanut butter pretzels to themselves rather than having to offer them round politely. Thanks for all the entertainment says Sally. And Sally thank you for just being a listener who, well not just, for being a listener who then one day felt compelled to get in touch. I love hearing from you. So impressed that your dad could do equal fifths. That's difficult to do. Well, back in the day, I'm sure your mum was the same.

My sweet intake was really carefully rationed. Oh my good! I mean, you know... I was going to say garden, then I thought better of it, sorry. A bag of revels would be put very carefully back in the high cupboard, I mean there's no hope of me ever reaching it, or in the fridge for weeks on end. Well high days and holidays, that's the only time we were allowed sweet teas, no fizzy drinks. No, I mean it was, when I got a bit of my own money, pocket money,

I would go to the corner shop on the way to school and get just a quarter of lemon bonbons. Which set me up for the day. My favourite was always the sherbet dib dab, which had the licorice stick in it, not the lollipop. No, sherbet fountain. Yeah, and that just lasted forever because nobody liked the licorice stick. But it was a very effective mechanism. It was a very effective dibba dabba. a very effective mechanism. It was a very effective dibba-dabba. Now the UK is going to launch a bid, as you may well have read in the Times, for the Women's

Football World Cup in 2035. Now that has the potential to be an enormous global event with 48 nations competing. Now one of the people really responsible for transforming women's sport in this country is our guest, it's Baroness Sue Campbell, a former PE teacher turned sports administrator who ran UK sport for a decade between 2003 and 2013 and then went to the FA as director of women's football and she should take a fair chunk of the credit for London 2012 and for the Lionesses triumph at the Euros in 2022. Sue told me about her earliest sporting memory. I think probably my mother telling me I was feral when I was young because she couldn't get me in because I was either climbing trees or playing football with

the boys in the street and she used to get me by banging a spoon on a plate because that was the only other thing I was interested in was food. So sport was just a huge part of my life and I always said a great mother, which I did, and I was blessed with a super dad, but the sport really was my third parent. I was redheaded, competitive, and sport gave me boundaries. It helped me learn about myself. It helped me understand what I could be and my potential and you know it taught me those early leadership skills you know captains of teams and things that now

you look back on and you realize what a great learning experience sport was for me. Sue I really understand that you get sport and I certainly love watching live sports, it's one of my favorite things to do. Not everybody in Britain certainly at the top of British public life, gets sport. You do, interestingly in your book, have a sort of very polite go at one significant political figure. Can you tell us who that is? Yes, Michael Gove. For me, and this is the challenge for us with government, is that there's three departments whose sport matter to.

There's the Department of Health, to help people be physically active, because it's not about sport then, it's about keeping physically active, and you know, beastie figures are just going up and up and up and up. So we need to get young people and older people physically active, and that doesn't mean playing sport, it could mean just going for a dog walk on a regular basis.

There's the Department for Culture, Media and Sport where it's mostly about the top end of sport and events, but also they invest through Sport England in grassroots and then UK Sport in the Olympic and Paralympics. And then there's the Department for Education and for me, physical education and school sport in our schools is a critical starting point. To me, like literacy and numeracy, if you don't help kids become physically literate and enjoy movement at the ages of primary school and early secondary, you've lost them really. So that area was really important and Tony Blair and his successive Secretary of State in the Department for Education really understood that. And so we built an incredibly big new structure for PE and sport, which

was about getting every school in the country in a family. So we had all, we had 400 families of schools, which included every primary, every secondary, every special needs school, where we were working collaboratively to drive up the amount of pee and sport for every child and understanding that it wasn't all about excellence, it was about giving everyone an opportunity. We'd seen massive increases in participation from 23% in 2003 to 94% in 2009 of kids doing at least two hours and 50 odd percent doing over five hours. I mean, it was brilliant. Michael Gove came in in 2010 coalition government and dismantled the whole structure. And the only way I describe it in the book, the only way I could describe it to anyone was like you've spent 10 years of your life building a house brick by brick

and you're watching someone burn it down with your hands behind your back and that's what it felt like to me. It was brutal and probably the worst professional, I've had some difficult personal moments, but the worst professional moment of my life. And this, we should emphasise, this is before the London Olympics. Two years before the Olympics dismantled the school sports system, which was astonishing really. Has it recovered? No, not really. The hours for physical education have declined in both primary and secondary. There are always good examples, there are always good schools with committed head teachers

who make it work. But no, overall the hours and the number of PE teachers in our secondary schools has declined. So that means our after-school sport programs have declined and you know I feel so passionate having had that experience early on in Moss Side where you know I took a group of young women who had no self-esteem, no hope, you know working on the streets of Manchester far too early in their lives and through activity and dance and sport saw them change in front of my eyes. Well this is what the book tells us, which it's not just that you've always been right at the top in hugely important governance roles, you have been a PE teacher at the sharp end

and that is how you started your career in sport. It was. How long did you teach for? I taught and lectured for nine years. Right. So. And you really felt that during that time, well I think I read in the book, you properly grew as a person didn't you? Because it wasn't always easy. I did. No, it wasn't and you know I had a period of being anorexic. My father died and I'm sure a psychologist today

would have a field day on me, but I didn't have that. I just had the GP and I was very, very ill. So there were lots of battles I was having with myself. We all have them. It's part of how we grow. And I certainly learned a lot about myself in that time. But I also, that's where my mission was born. It's where my love for using sports, you know, changed lives.

And having got the job as the first woman on staff at Loughborough, when Loughborough went from being a men's PE college to a department of PE and sports science at university, everybody thought I'd be there for life. But after four years, that strange itch that had been scratched on my side kind of came back to me and I went and worked for four, four and a half years in the inner city using sport with people who were elderly, people who were living in high-rise buildings, the unemployed, trying to use sport to enrich their lives.

And when you say sport, I mean the broadest sense of sport activity and trying to change lives through this vehicle I understood and you know I watched some unbelievable transformational changes in people's lives so that passion has always been there and remains with me so the grassroots of football was just as important to me to grow the opportunities for girls to play to to coach, to referee, those things really matter to me. You have played a part in some hugely significant sporting memories and events in this country

and you were part of the effort to get London the Olympic Games in 2012. I remember distinctly, I wanted to be on the phone to somebody when we knew it was going to be either London or Paris that were going to get the Games. So it rang my sister or she rang me and we heard together, because we're both big Olympic nuts, that London was going to get it. And everybody went berserk. Where were you that day? Sitting in the auditorium. Right. And Seb had made a very... Singapore? Yes. Seb had made a very good decision that instead of taking 60 suits, which everybody

else took, we took 30 suits and 30 young people from the Barking Abbey area, the east end of London that would benefit from the games. And I was sitting with them and I never heard the whole of London. I only heard that luh and the rest was just bodies all over me, these little people all climbing all over me screaming we done it Mitch, we done it! So yeah, it was a very special moment, brilliant presentation, brilliant piece of video that we showed and Seb's message was we're going to use the Olympics to inspire young people to choose sport all over the world.

And there were nights and events of London 2012 which in retrospect now just seem like a fever dream. The opening ceremony, that crazy Saturday night. Yeah. I mean, how often do you think about all that? Well, I came into UK sport in 2003 and we were 10th in the medal table in Sydney. We were just going into Athens, looked like we were going to be 10th again. And Prime Minister Tony Blair and Tessa Jowell wanted to know, was 10th as good as we could be?

If we're going to bid for the Olympics, is that it? And can you go in and tell us whether that's it? And after six months, I came back and said, we can do a lot better, but it means completely restructuring the way we invest, what we do. It wasn't the most popular thing I've ever done. It was tough, it was very hard, those are some of the leadership things. Sorry, forgive me, but you mean some sports lost funding, it was ruthless?

If some people would call it ruthless, I would say that to be world-class you have to make those tough decisions. You know, world-class is expensive and if you're going to ensure that those who have medal potential achieve that medal potential, you have to focus on them. It's no good giving money to sports who are nowhere near medal potential at any point. People thought it was tough and it was tough. But you know, we became we came fourth in Beijing, third in London, second in Rio, and everybody recognised that we'd changed the performance system in this country.

And those sports that weren't part of it still understood what it took to get there and have benefited from that. So, yeah, it was tough. And the Paralympics too, you know, we looked at it in a completely new light. There's a different preparation time for Paralympians, there's a different set of

environments that they need to be placed in in order to achieve their potential. So you know, fantastic really, great moments for me. But as you were saying earlier, the legacy, the idea that more young people would play sport as a result of 2012, that unfortunately it hasn't happened, has it? No. And you know, it's something, a lesson that I hammered home when we won the opportunity to run the Euros for football. And I went to UEFA and said, I need investment ahead of the games for legacy. And they said, no, legacy happens after the games. No, legacy doesn't. You've got to prepare the ground for legacy. So we took all the host cities that we had and my terrific colleagues went in

and worked with all the people in the host city from health to clubs to schools to department for education locally and created half a million new opportunities to play referee or coach. So that when the games came into town, whether it was Sheffield or wherever it was, and people went, I want to do this, they could do it. There was a place to go. And we put a target that that half a million wouldn't be reached for four years.

We've reached it in a year and a half. That's how many people were inspired by that. But preparation legacy has to happen before and of course in 2010 we'd taken away the school sport infrastructure. So all that opportunity that we might have had in 2012 to connect children to that Olympic dream and make it a reality I'm afraid was gone. It's such a shame and what your book illustrates brilliantly is the genuine journey over used term that women's football has been on in this country so you love football I love football as a kid you couldn't play it wasn't really possible for you to carry on playing with boys and that

was it if a woman said she liked football it actually meant she liked men's football and that was that because so many people, they don't understand the history, the fact that the FA banned, more or less, banned women from playing football. Yeah. In the First World War, when the men went off to war, the women who were in the munition factories formed football teams. And they were playing in front of crowds of 30 and 40,000 people. And when the men men came back the FA took the decision that the women shouldn't play anymore because they hadn't got the facilities or whatever, I mean whatever the reason was I wasn't there, I might look like I was there but I wasn't there.

And so you know 50 years later a group of women, you know this is what I love about women who were determined to say no, this isn't right, brought themselves together and played for England in a tournament in Brazil, paid for themselves, everything else. It's a great story. It's a wonderful story because it goes back to women can drive change if they really want to but they have to feel empowered to do so. So we've managed to trace every woman that's ever played for England since 1972 and we've given them all their personalised cap

with their own number on and those numbers are now running on. I thought that was a lovely nugget in the book, the fact that the FA, perhaps no doubt because you encouraged them, made every effort to contact every single woman who'd played for England. How much did it mean to these individuals to get those caps? Oh for some of them, I mean a lot of tears. Some still cross with us, but you know, fair enough. It wasn't a gesture, it was a genuine commitment to engage them in the future of the game, not just the past of the game. So we got them in to come and talk to the Lionesses, for example, and they talked about their story. We've made their story a part of all inductions for our young players.

For example when we had the tier three National League final at Luton last year, that was where the first ever Euros was played and England played Sweden on a very muddy pitch may I say. And we got that England team that had played in that match and brought the man at half time and the crowd gave them an extraordinary reception. So you know I'm a great believer that it's by learning from your past you can predict your future and I think there's a lot that these women still have to teach us and I think it's a very exciting part of the women's game. Yeah and with women's football you are always going to,

in fact there have been a couple of examples very recently of men criticising the quality of women's football, and I've watched enough women's football to know that it is essentially a different game. I mean it can be very entertaining to watch, the pace is slightly different, you've got to acknowledge that, and I know you don't think the women's game should try too hard to ape the men's game, is that correct? Yeah I mean I think my first board meeting with the FA board members, I think they all thought I was completely off my rocker, but anyway I said to them I only

want to say one thing to you and that is that the men's game is like an oak tree. You know you walk into the woods you see the oak tree, it's there, everybody recognises it's big, it's strong, it stands out. The women's game is like an oak tree. You walk into the woods, you see the oak tree. It's there, everybody recognises it's big, it's strong, it stands out in the woods. The women's game is a sapling growing under that oak tree. My job as director of women's football is to dig it up and move it out from under the shadow and let it grow in its own light

because I'm not sure it wants to be an oak tree. You could see these men look at me like, yeah, blimey, who brought this crazy woman here? And, you know, and I believe that, that we've tried to put the game in its own light. And the players are different. Elite women need to be managed very differently, physiologically, psychologically, socially.

Well, they tend to ask, I read in the book, women tend to ask more questions, don't they? Yeah, why? Why am I being told to do that? Yes, I remember Phil... Neville. Phil said to me... I read in the book that women tend to ask more questions, don't they? Yeah, why? Why am I being told to do that? I remember Phil Neville. Phil said to me... Who was the England Women's Manager?

Yes, he was. And he said to me, well, when I did my awards, he said the left-back's a left-back, it doesn't matter to me. I thought, mm-hmm. After about a week in the She Believes Cup in America, he said, can we go for a walk? I said, yeah. Walking down the road, I said, what's the matter? He said, women matter he said women are different I said oh Philip come on you're married of course they're different he said no why do they ask why all the time it's men he said just put the practice out

you they want to know why why are we doing this I said well it's part of who they are they want to understand what they're doing um and he, you know, he was a good man and we're still very good friends. And he worked really hard at trying to adapt his own style, which was very much the men's style, because that's what he knew. And he did a really good job in that. And we got to the semi-final of the World Cup, which was great. It wasn't that he did particularly badly, it's just that Serena Vigman did better. She's exceptional though. I mean she's probably, you know, if you ever want a study of someone who knows how to create the real sense of team, not just the players but the team around the team, a real sense of togetherness, a real sense of unity, and part of that is that very honest Dutch communication style.

Can she be really quite brutal? I wouldn't ever use the word brutal. She's very direct. Give me an example of a direct Serena Wiegman piece of encouragement. Well let me use the one she did with me which surprised me but made me a little sharper. The first training we had with Serena when she was England coach was Southampton. And I had worked with her to recruit her and I liked her and we were getting on really well.

And I thought this is gonna be very special. She felt like the right woman to take them to the next level. And we had this meeting room and it wasn't very good. It was long and thin and it was really poor and it should have been wrecked before and it wasn't. So she came in and I said, I'm really sorry about this room.

She said, that's okay, we'll get on with it. So she goes to the front, crisp, gets on with it. And at the end I said, I'm really sorry about this room. I'll see if we can do something better. And she just looked at me, she said, yes. And I said, it won't happen again. She said, better not. And I said, it won't happen again. She said, better not. And I thought, ooh.

Ha ha ha ha ha ha. Welcome to my Dutch world. Welcome to my world of perfection. She's a lovely human being. Don't get me wrong. I don't want to give the impression of anything else, but she's very direct. You know where you stand, you know what your role is,

and you know what she expects of you. That is Sue Campbell, Baroness Sue Campbell, who has written a book called The Game Changer, Lessons from the Woman Who Transformed Sport, and she was talking there at the end about the Dutch England women's football manager, Serena Vigman, who is a very nice woman, as Sue said, but a perfectionist. She likes things done properly. Right. Gosh, okay. Well, all hail to her, we may never

be friends. Well, I don't think either of us are likely to be selected. Oh, no, no, I hate to say it, Fee. Everybody's got to have a dream. Yes, and my dream came true when I watched England winning the Euros. I think that would be, that was a dream, definitely, a fever dream came true when I watched England winning the Euros. I think that was a dream, definitely. A fever dream, wonderful. My apologies to anybody who's listening in either Monte Carlo or Monaco. It must be absolutely galling that two women sitting in the heart of London can't exactly place you on the map. But if you are listening in Monte Carlo or Monaco, do get in touch. Well, and if you... The question is just why? if you drive a Skoda? We really want to hear.

Well I'd need photographic evidence of that. What makes, just out of interest for car fans, what makes your Skoda Monte Carlo, I mean is there an extra, are there fresh trimmings or? Yes it was a Skoda Kameak and the trim is Monte Carlo. Oh really? Yeah, special edition. A Monte Carlo trim everybody, how wonderful. Right, have a good weekend. I really hope you do and we're back on Monday when the temperature will have plummeted so we'll be back in low mood and we'll keep going because that's who we are. Goodbye.

Congratulations, you've staggered somehow to the end of another Off Air with Jane and Fee, thank you. If you'd like to hear us do this live, and we do do it live, every day, Monday to Thursday, 2 till 4, on Times Radio. The Jeopardy is off the scale, and if you listen to this, you'll understand exactly why that's the case. So you can get the radio online, on DAB, or on the free Times Radio app. Off Air is produced by Eve Salisbury and the executive producer is Rosie Cutler.