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22nd August 2018
10:59am BST
"We started the petition in March, and contacted the Supporter Liaison Officer at Celtic with our case. It took around three weeks, and by that time we had nearly 3,000 signatures. But I think even more important was the debate that started around it on social media and fan forums. "I think Celtic probably noticed how many people were talking about it and wanted to find out more, so they asked us to come in for a meeting. We went along and it was with the SLO and Company Secretary. We presented a thoroughly prepared proposal and thankfully they decided to go with it."Despite positive feedback and plenty of good will, not everyone was behind On The Ball's efforts. Some Celtic fans seemed intent on arguing that tackling period poverty was somehow a bad idea.
"We got a wee bit of the 'No Women At Football' stuff, but also a whole range of arguments like: 'What about razors and shaving foam for men - are you going to start petitioning for that?' and 'Why should women get this paid for them - will it make my season ticket more expensive?' "We got quite a bit of stick. At the time we were on our way to winning the Double Treble, and there was even people saying: 'Is that not enough? Are these girls still not content? They just want to get free stuff from Celtic Park!' Some of the angry reactions were bizarre."Another common contention is that if people can afford to go to games, they can afford to buy sanitary products themselves. On The Ball's counter-argument is two-fold: Firstly the make-up of football crowds spans the full range of income brackets, with tickets often given away to people in disadvantaged areas through various foundations and charities. Secondly, it is a matter of principle. Sanitary products should be free everywhere - it is basic hygiene requirement that should be addressed in the same way that toilet roll and soap are provided as a standard courtesy. Where football leads in making clear that sanitary products are a need not a luxury, the rest of society can hopefully follow. Perhaps the most impressive thing about On The Ball's grassroots efforts is that they have inspired something of a snowball effect. Since their success at Celtic, seven other clubs have followed suit and provided similar provision. These are: St Roch’s, Tranmere Rovers, West Didsbury & Chorlton, Kilmarnock, Queen of the South, and most recently, Barnsley. https://twitter.com/hackneyhaz/status/1030837254267314176 What's more, there's something refreshing about On The Ball in that there's no ego involved in maintaining control or ownership of a movement they started. Their intentions are purely altruistic. When I ask how they are rolling out the initiative to other clubs, Mikaela's explains they themselves are not - rather they are focused on empowering others.
"We're not going out blanket messaging every club because we like the idea of empowering fans to get involved themselves, and it demonstrates to the clubs that it's their own fans that want change. It's mostly working-class people who are getting in touch and that's a really important aspect for us. We want to keep it grassroots and organic. "It really shows you which clubs are in touch with their fan base, and receptive to supporters approaching them with ideas. We've spoken to fans who've sadly had no traction at all with their clubs, whilst others, like Barnsley, have been brilliant and actually got in touch with us. You can tell the relationship they have with their support and it's great to see that."For anyone interested in getting involved, On The Ball provide an info email with useful guidance from their own experiences, but they try not to deal in specifics about factors like overall cost and implementation, simply because circumstances can vary so markedly from club to club. Instead they seek to encourage and advise the best they can, and champion cases where change has been successfully implimented. It's clearly important to them to promote these instances, as creating a discussion around menstruation and breaking the taboo is part of what they hope to achieve.
As Mikaela explains, it has been enlightening on a personal level too:
"There's definitely still a stigma around talking about periods and stuff. Even when we first started, a week or two into the campaign I thought it was so weird that we'd been on social media telling people to talk about it and I'd not even mentioned the campaign to my dad yet, because it still felt kinda funny. So I thought, right, I need to do that because it's just ridiculous. I phoned him to explain what we were doing and he said it was great and to send him our page so he could put it on Facebook - just totally normal about it! "It was also funny when we went to speak to Celtic. At one point, the guys were like 'Aye you're right! I've never spoken to my daughter or my wife about it...' We can see people's brains ticking when we talk about the campaign, and it's because as a society we just don't speak about it."They're certainly talking about it now, and On The Ball should rightly be held up as a exemplar for fan empowerment. Their passion, tenacity and hard work - even in the face of criticism and blatant misogyny - is reaping rewards and rightly so. The final word goes to Mikaela, who is eager to stress that their success could and should be translated to other causes that need addressing too:
"We just had an idea and went to the club, and made this change. It shows that this kind of change needs to come from the fans. It's not from politicians or counsellors or academics, it's just normal people. If you have an idea or something you want to change, you can do it. If really want something to change, you've got to fight for it."
