18/12/21 - TVOS Feature vs Newport

Make me a sandwich? Get back to the kitchen! You're a girl so your opinion doesn't count! This is a mans game... These are only a handful of statements that have been said to us in the past!

Hello everybody. Our names are Charlotte and Isabelle. Some of you may recognise us from the stands but also from social media, as we have just started our own podcast called 'The Dale Way'. You may be thinking, another Rochdale podcast? We have plenty already. But this one is different from the others as it's from 'Her Point Of View'.

The two of us feel like it's time to start something new and make a change. We have been watching Rochdale since we were both young girls and absolutely love it still to this day. The club is extremly close to both of our hearts and we are so very thankful to have been brought to games with our dads over the years. We want to normalise girls and women coming to football games, being confident in voicing their opinions and feeling comfortable being a female at football. Us girls have always felt part of Rochdale Football Club and never received any backlash for being female but unfortunatly it is an ongoing issue in society and more women are experiencing sexist comments at games, in the pubs and also on social media.

Rochdale have recently joined forces with 'Her Game Too' a campaign to tackle sexism in football. The campaign was formed in May this year by 12 extremely passionate female fans that have experienced sexist abuse and had reached a breaking point. It was time to make a change and try to finally normalise football being a game that all genders can enjoy together without feeling like they are not equal and opinions aren't valid.

'The Dale Way' has been in the pipeline for a while now but we felt like it was time to help inspire other females of all ages, whether it be a little girl going to a football game, joining a football team, watching it on the television, speaking a loud about it. Us girls want to use both the Podcast and this feature in the programme as a voice for female fans because we can also love the game and enjoy it too.

We don’t want to just focus on the negatives though as there are so many positives as well. For months both of us have been listening religiously to the other Rochdale podcasts especially Rochdaleafc.com who just recently won ‘Podcast Of The Season’ at the North West Football Awards. A huge congratulations to Dean and the team, a well deserved win and we speak on behalf of all Rochdale fans, we are incredibly proud and you are all a credit to the Dale. Well done!

‘The Dale Way’ will include match analysis, pre match talks before up coming fixtures to express our opinions on formations, style of play and score predictions, reminiscing about ex players and games but also playing our own mini games where fans can get involved. We will also include several special guests, our first was an interview with Lucy Ford from ‘Her Game Too’ but we want a range of people from football, players, ex players, directors, the management team, staff, fans, anybody Rochdale related.

We really hope you enjoy listening to ‘The Dale Way’ and reading our blog in the programme. Us girls are overwhelmed with the support you have given us and appreciate all of your kind words.

Thank you so much

Charlotte and Isabelle x

The Dale Way - Available on YouTube, Anchor, Apple Podcast, Overcast and Spotify.