In 1970, Wim Thoelke devoted himself to the topic of women’s football in the “Aktuelles Sportstudio” – and let out a salvo of chauvinistic slogans. But luckily, times are changing.
“Cover, cover, don’t set the table, really cover man”: Wim Thoelke must have felt incredibly funny when he commented on a women’s soccer game on March 28, 1970 in the “Aktuelle Sportstudio”.
Officially, the sport was still forbidden for women in Germany at that time. She was “essentially alien to the nature of women”, according to the DFB, in the fight for the ball female grace dwindles, body and soul inevitably suffer damage.
Women in Germany no longer wanted to put up with this paternalism. In 1970 more than 50,000 women played in organized teams, and there was even an unofficial women’s national soccer team.
Wim Thoelke sees “tender jostling”
On March 28, ZDF showed excerpts from a game by this team. Moderator Wim Thoelke took the scarce minute as an opportunity for fireworks of chauvinistic slogans. He sees a “very gentle jostle” and enthuses patronizingly: “Mother gave a wonderful cross to the half-left.” When a goalkeeper lands in the mud, he scoffs: “The spectators don’t need to get upset. The women wash their jerseys themselves.” Elsewhere he says: “Free from all petty worries about household, husband and children, the libero plays back there.”
After all, some of the players of this unofficial national soccer team did have their say on ZDF. But they were announced as exotic: “Now of course you ask yourself: what kind of girls are doing this,” says Thoelke, “and why are they doing it.” Sentences that a male soccer player never had to listen to.
“World record in the discipline Chauvi sayings”
Incidentally, Thoelke’s condescension did not cause outrage at the time. From today’s perspective, this makes this contemporary document all the more valuable. Since this show, the moderator has held “the undisputed world record in the discipline of as many Chauvi sayings within one minute,” commented the WDR journalist Arnd Zeigler on this post when he presented it a few years ago in his show “Zeigler’s Wonderful World of Football”. .
For women’s football, it may be a source of satisfaction that the women’s national team has long surpassed the men’s in terms of success: they have won eight European championships, two world championships and one Olympic victory since 1989 – something the men can only dream of.
