A woman on the radio this morning was bemoaning the lack of women involved in the higher echelons of sports management and calling for greater gender equality in the field.

Now I don't know how many women actually want to go into sports management but if they have the ability, their applications should absolutely be given the same weight as men. I'm all about the meritocracy, and I suspect most people are these days.

However, it does remind me of my first exposure to an attempt to level the playing field.

In the mid-Nineties, while studying up in the North-West, I was pulled away on a three-month work placement at the Equal Opportunities Commission. Now this place was the closest thing you'd get to being buried alive. I mean, it was dead. Completely devoid of any vim and joie de vivre whatsoever.

However, about two months in, my manager threw me a bone. He said that some members of of the organisation got together once a week for a game of five-a-side and asked whether I'd be interested in joining them. I jumped at the opportunity and, pitching up at the collection point with my kit, I was pleased to see that we were going to have an audience. A number of women had come along to support the team and, in the mini-bus on the way down to the venue, I was excited at the prospect of finally burning off some energy.

Until I realised the women weren't coming down to support the team. They were coming down to play.

Now I'd like to say that they fought the good fight and were really rather good. And I went away comepletely transformed by the experience. But I can't. They sucked. And the men sucked too.

Good manners meant that I should've pretended to suck too but, with two months pent-up frustration about to be distilled into one hour, I didn't let up at all. I was skipping past players at will and, time and time again, smashing the ball into the net. When the chamber finally stopped whirling, I must have scored a hundred goals.

I never got invited back but fuck them, the reality is that we're not all equal. But at least the playing field was level, and that's the main thing.