Breaking In: What Nobody Tells You About Entering a Male-Dominated Industry.

There is a moment that stays with me.

Before a match, minutes before going on air, a colleague pulled me aside. He began explaining the proceedings - slowly, deliberately - as if I hadn't spent years living and breathing this game. As if I needed to be walked through it. As if I didn't belong there.

He wasn't being malicious. That's what made it sting more. He genuinely didn't believe I knew.

That moment taught me something nobody warns you about when you decide to walk into a male-dominated industry. It's rarely loud. It's rarely aggressive. It's quiet. It's the assumption. The slight pause before they hand you the mic. The look nexchanged across the room. The explanation you never asked for.

Nobody tells you about that.

What They Also Don't Tell You - Is That You'll Prove Them Wrong Anyway.

I didn't walk into commentary because someone opened the door for me. There was no mentor, no blueprint, no woman before me in this region who had done it first. I walked in because I decided to.

And I'll be honest - the nerves were real. The first time I picked up that mic in an official capacity, my heart was racing. I had spent years listening to commentators, studying them, absorbing every word, every pause, every moment of insight. But listening and being are two very different things.

What carried me through wasn't confidence. It was observation. I have always been a student of the game - watching, learning, filing away details that most people miss. That habit, built over 14 years as a player, became my greatest weapon behind the mic.

The Turning Point.

It happened during a radio broadcast. A specific situation unfolded on the pitch and I called it - not just what was happening, but why it was happening. I used technical language. I drew on lived experience as a former captain. I gave the moment context, depth, and analysis.

The room shifted. I could feel it.

That is the thing about sport - it doesn't lie. You either know the game or you don't. And in that moment, there was no longer any question about whether I did.

What I Want Every Woman Reading This To Know.

You will be underestimated. Probably more than once. By people who should know better, and by people who simply don't know yet.

Let them not know. And then show them.

You don't need to annouce yourself. You don't need to fight for the room's approval before you've even opened your mouth. Do the work. Know your craft deeper than anyone expects you to. And when the moment comes - and it will come - be so good they can't look away.

The mic was always meant to be yours. Pick it up.