UNTIL more details are released regarding Sam Allardyce, I thought it was best to stay away from that topic.

The last thing I want to do is jump to conclusions based on one story that leaked on Monday night when I am sure this is just the start of something big.

What I will say is that my initial reaction was that I did not believe he should be sacked. But again, that is just from reading one article online. As yesterday progressed, and more details leaked, I became uncertain.

I am yet to see the full video and am unsure whether I believe him when he says he was asked about his opinion on third party ownership.

I am sure I will go into more detail this time next week.

Instead, I want to take you back to Saturday evening. I was watching a new TV show called Pitch which I had seen advertised during Thursday Night (American) Football between the New England Patriots and Houston Texans.

For those that haven’t heard about it, Pitch is about a female baseball player playing in the major leagues for the San Diego Padres.

She becomes the first woman to play at that level and it got me thinking: how far away are we from seeing something like that?

The producers of the show claim that the show is a “a true story on the verge of happening,” which piqued my interest.

I watched the episode with my dad and we ended up having a discussion about what sports could a woman play alongside men.

We didn’t discuss tennis because they already have mixed doubles. But team sports like football, basketball, rugby etc.

The main character in Pitch, Ginny Baker, is told by her dad as a kid that she will never be as strong or fast as the men on her team due to biological reasons and there is nothing she can do about it.

That isn’t entirely true. She could easily be faster and stronger than some of her teammates but I could see the point he was trying to make.

Commentators on the show in the build-up to her first start for the Padres say that her fastest pitch is in the low 80s, mph, which is very slow for the majors.

Now for a sport like baseball, you can get around having a slow pitch and Baker’s dad does this by teaching her a special pitch, a knuckle ball.

From that perspective, you can see why baseball is one sport where a woman could easily slot into the team and contribute.

However, the problems for a woman may be less physical and more social.

There is a particular scene where she meets the captain of the team and he slaps her behind, quite routine in locker rooms in the United States.

However, it is one thing to pat a male teammate on the bum. It is another to do it to a woman and she rightfully gets angry and tells him to do not do it again.

His reply is that he can do what he wants as he is the leader of this team and that if he wants to slap her “perfect peach ass” then she will accept it.

He would never say that to a male teammate and groping and commenting on her body in that way is extremely sexist.

Baker says OK then as she walks off slaps him on the bum which I found was an interesting take on how to deal with that situation.

Later on in the show, the coach does the same thing, as a way of congratulating her, and the captain tells the coach that she doesn’t like that.

Now that kind of “team spirit” is routine among men in the United States but would it not be considered sexual harassment if it was a man doing it to a woman?

Another issue would be where the female players would change.

But could having a separate dressing room for men and women, which I would agree with, alienate the women and make them feel like they are not part of the team?

There is no way to get around that issue and when Baker is given her own dressing room, albeit a small closet, she says that is more than enough.

I expect that she wants her own space, one away from the men. Male dressing rooms can be an extremely degrading place for women.

In American Football, would we ever see a female quarterback or linebacker? That would be a huge step.

The rules which prevented women from playing in the NFL were removed in 2011.

A cursory look at opinions on the topic hold that physical size and strength would prevent women playing with men. Now that is stupid because you do get small NFL players and it is skill that defines whether someone can play American Football.

Women are generally smaller, yes, but it’s not a reason to exclude them.

If it were to happen tomorrow, I believe the most likely position would be the kicker/punter. That has nothing to do with strength or size, that is simply: can you kick the ball between the posts?

Lauren Silberman participated at the NFL regional scouting combine in New Jersey three years ago as a kicker but she had an underwhelming day, to put it nicely.

People there questioned her basic competence, but you have to wonder about the role of sexism.

“I’m just really happy I had this amazing experience,’’ Silberman concluded. ‘’I might be the first woman trying out for the NFL, but I certainly hope I’m not the last.”

In 2003, Katie Hnida of the University of New Mexico became the first woman to score in an NCAA Division I-A game, university football’s highest level.

Hnida never went past that level. After graduating in 2004 she revealed that she had been raped by one of her teammates at Colorado University in 2000 and sexually harassed on other occasions.

As alluded to earlier, some actions that take place between men in a locker room would be considered sexual harassment. While in an ideal world those practices would cease to exist, it seems likely that men would continue and use the excuse that they were treating them like they would any other teammate.

Mixed association football is growing at grassroots level. I played a five-a-side game a few months back against a team of women. It was fine, the game was played with the same intensity as an all men’s game and there were no issues.

I’ve been in these kind of scenarios before where there would be one woman on the other team and my teammates would be worried about tackling them, in case they “accidentally” touched them inappropriately.
My answer has always been the same: you don’t accidentally grope male opponents so why would you do that to a womant?

It’s that kind of idiotic thinking holding the game back. Why couldn’t Gemma Davison or Toni Duggan compete in the Premier League or lower?

If the talent is there, gender shouldn’t be an obstacle. Now things have changed within the last decade.

The Women’s Super League has meant that women have their own path into football at an extremely competitive level and can make a living out of it.

Women playing football may not want to play with men as they don’t need to. And the same is with basketball. The Women’s National Basketball Association is a league for women, they don’t need the NBA.

But what is it about about baseball and American Football that it makes it more likely to have a woman compete alongside men in these sports than others?