A Ladies' Man

I realise that some of my readers might be tempted to doubt my feminist credentials. My recent rant about Janet Street-Porter has led some to think, somehow, that I’m a whisky-soaked misogynist of some sort.

I can’t claim I wasn’t wounded by the charge. Just because I’m styled (by my publicists, I hasten to add) as The Man Who Tells It Like It Is, it doesn’t mean I don’t have a certain affinity for the female mind. Watching Willy Russell’s wonderful Blood Brothers at the Liverpool Empire last week was a truly moving experience. I’m not the kind of man who would pretend a tear didn’t cascade its way down my cheek now and again during the performance.

I like to think – alongside the estimable Crofty – that my sensitivities extend a tad further than standing on the sideline cheering the Latics as they trounce Everton in a cup encounter. I’ll also be the first to admit to occasionally listening to Alanis Morissette, without for a moment thinking I’ve dented my credibility as one of the foremost sports correspondents of my generation.

For those who doubt my claims, I can only refer them to some of my earliest writing. I’m not a man to blow my own trumpet, but should there be anyone who thinks I’m a ‘man’s man’, here’s a clipping from one of my earliest forays into journalism, when I was asked to stand in to write a column or two for Letty Bradshaw, the Stockport Leader’s much-respected woman’s correspondent. I think it speaks for itself. If anyone thinks a mere woman could have penned such prose, then they’re clearly biased.