Hannah Dingley, Forest Green’s reluctant pioneer: ‘If there are glass ceilings, break through’

The guy on the gate admitted to a sense of disorientation. Melksham Town weren’t expecting this, a flurry of media interest and the sudden need to find room for more reporters, cameras and equipment than they knew what to do with. And neither was Hannah Dingley, Forest Green Rovers’ slightly reluctant trailblazer.

Advertisement

“I’m not one for the limelight,” Dingley said. And as she said it, she allowed herself a chuckle. Because she was the reason we were here in the unlikely surroundings of this new-build stadium on the outskirts of a market town in Wiltshire, crammed into a hospitality suite to hear from the first woman to take charge of a men’s professional football team in England.

To be clear, it was only a pre-season friendly and Dingley’s appointment is only on a temporary basis — certainly for now, with Forest Green turning to their academy manager while contemplating their next move after the dismissal of former Everton and Scotland forward Duncan Ferguson on Tuesday. But it still felt like a significant moment within the sport.

As anti-discrimination charity Kick It Out said in response to her appointment: “That’s the sound of a glass ceiling being smashed.”

Well, not smashed. But cracked, certainly.

Just how big a crack it is, only time will tell.

It was a warm occasion.

After reading out the two line-ups, the matchday announcer said it would be “remiss of me not to offer a very warm welcome this evening to Hannah Dingley, the Forest Green Rovers head coach, who is making football history as the first-ever female Football League coach”.

There was a generous round of applause from the crowd and enthusiastic whoops from two Forest Green fans who had brought along a banner saying “Go Hannah go!”. One of them, Viv