What the Dickens!?

In fourteen seconds Snooge awoke from a trance to the sight of a bespectacled figure with a wooden racket; dressed in revealing white from the bottom of her neck to the very top of her thigh.

“I’m Billie Jean” it said with a faraway accent, “the ghost of women’s sporting past.”

“Billie Jean from the song?” inquired Snooge; motioning to moonwalk.

The Spirit rolled her eyes. Then she narrowed them. Then she cocked her racket and, with an almighty descending swoosh, she smashed the old geezer ‘twixt the peepers and served him beautifully over the touchline of time …

Snooge landed with a bump at the foot of a glass office building near the river in a noisy, pre-Christmas London circa 1983. The spirit, once known for her fine footwork, descended elegantly to the scene some moments later.

“Do you remember this place?” she asked in a question plucked straight from a classic novel.

Good Heavens!” said Snooge following suit. “Remember it? I was bred in this place. I could walk it blindfold.”

Snooge led Spirit Jean to a conference room on the fifteenth floor where piles of suits had gathered around a kidney-shaped table; as was the style at the time.

“Do you remember him,” asked Spirit pointing her racket at a milquetoast young man in a perm and shoulder pads, who was suggestively nibbling a Danish.

“Oh Spirit,” Snooge gasped, “that’s me as a young lad.”

“I know,” she said. “This is Christmas ‘83 and the moment your company turned down sponsoring that female sports research project. No ROI, apparently.”

“Hamburg”, snapped Snooge.

“Ah yes, it was based out of Germany,” confirmed Spirit Billie. “This could’ve turned the tide but it didn’t get off the ground. To this day we know precious little about female bodies because legacy research doesn’t exist. I wonder why that is …”

“Humbug?” said Snooge, offering Billie a branded mint. But she ignored him. She instead swung her racket and, as if changing slides on a projector, she volleyed the pair through the tentacles of time to the company Christmas party 1984 …

“You paid for this with budget earmarked for a menopause policy, didn’t you?” barbed Billie.

“But Spirit … ” wobbled Snooge, “I was just …”

Bill-Jee simply wasn’t listening. She primed her racket once more and whoosh.

“Christmas ‘85,” she shouted. “Here’s you telling Phil in accounts to pull his daughters out of football. Unladylike, you said. Pointless, you said. Not so pointless in the 2020s now, is it?

“Please, Spirit, no more,” cried Snooge, but again the racket swooshed. “Nineteen eighty seven,” she barked. “You sponsored an episode of TV chess when you could’ve covered women’s rugby for the season.”

“Stop!” cried Snooge.

“Nineteen eighty nine,” the barrage continued. “A bumper year in which you pushed spurious slimming pills to teenage girls …

“Oh and here’s 1990. Remember when you instigated a dress code calling for sleeveless blouses and skirts above the knee? Athletic tens, you said.”

“But Spirit, I was just …” wailed Snooge with tears in his eyes.

Billie cocked her racket to tee-up another but old Snoogey held aloft his hand. “No more,” he coughed in despair. “I beg of you no more …”

“I’ve got more in the tank,” chuckled Billie, “just ask Bobby Riggs.”

Spirit Jean primed her racket a second time but a weeping Snooge soon grabbed her beggingly by the pleats.

“How do I change, dear Spirit. I want not a life of misery. I want to open my mind and my eyes to women’s sport so please show me. Show me that and thus how I can avoid much more of this preposterously indulgent creative concept.”

Snooge looked up as Spirit Billie’s eyes changed shape. She paused. She pondered.

“I’ll grant you a reprieve”, she said. “Consider yourself on probation. A year’s suspended sentence to change your ways or it’s the spiritual knackers yard for you.

That’s not classic dialogue thought Snooge, but at least the parody was over.

“It shall be so,” Spirit Billie announced. “You have one year. Come Christmas ‘25 you’re up for review. And the next spirit, good sir, may not be as kindly as I.”

“What form will the next spirit take?” Snooge asked nervously.

“You’ll find out next week,” came the response. “Same as everyone else.”

Time travel, hallucinations, being proper hairdryered … what transpired in the night was either a significant happening or the thump of mid-shelf Christmas spirit.

Confused and shaking, Snooge staggered in thick darkness towards his bathroom. He trudged the cold tile floor until he found the sink and turned the tap. He washed his face. He gulped. He felt better.

After countless deep breaths over many painful minutes, Snooge finally felt a snatch of calm and his rational brain came back online. Of course he’d imagined it – spirits and eternal damnation? Ha! Piffle. Silliness. Shenanigans. Humbug.

But as Snooge reached for the light switch any sense of relief was instantly wiped from his moosh. Bathing in the sudden light of this sparse bed chamber was a broad-shouldered and bemuscled young woman in rugby garb.

She peered down at Snooge and confirmed what he already knew. “I am the ghost of Women’s Sport Present,” she said. “And you’ve got work to do.”

In a brave / silly bid to escape, Snooge charged the Spirit. He mightaswell’ve headbutted an armoured car. Without a shock-absorbing headband the collision rang his bell and poor Snooge hit the deck.

Once again dizzy and sick, Snooge gazed up at the Spirit and, on the edge of consciousness once more, he fudged some original dialogue.

“Come in and know me better, ma’am.” All was dark then.

Snooge would know her better. Spirit became a permanent fixture. She stuck to him like a bad simile.

Snooge repeatedly tried to outwit and shake his powerful new tail. In a series of comedic moments plucked from a nineties sketch show: he got on wrong buses and tubes. He tried to outsprint her on Oxford Street. He even jumped in the Thames and swam for it. Each move was one more attempt to lose his marker and each move summarily failed. It’s almost as if she’s a professional.

Unable to best her physically, Snooge channeled his business acumen into a 143-slide PowerPoint proving the economic ceiling of women’s sport. That didn’t work either, mind, ‘cos Spirit had better info which challenged the veracity of his data. Brain, brawn, business – Spirit was streets ahead.

Incidentally, Snoogie came to name her Spirit IM owing to her similarities with an Instant Message. Any time Snooge formed an opinion, Spirit immediately replied by pinging superior info his way.

(It must be pointed out that Snooge – a shrewd businessman no stranger to legal disputes – called her Spirit IM for the above reason and no other. Any resemblances to persons living or dead are completely coincidental.)

Thus like an angel, or perhaps devil, on his shoulder, Spirit IM reminded Snooge the terms of his reprieve. The money lender / investor had the 12 months ‘til Christmas 2025 to change his ways. To come to believe, engage, contribute and support the inevitable, necessary, wonderful rise of women’s sport.

It took until February for Snooge to move through anger, denial and bargaining. Acceptance, now, and every day his Spirit partner steered / embarrassed him into contrary thought and action.

When presented a prospectus on new women’s health wearables, Snooge’s instinct was to pass. But Spirit IM rightly advised that no-one in the market yet dominates in this area. “Done right it’ll be a gamechanger”, she said, and with that old Snoogie made a hefty investment and with it landed a seat on the board.

In April an attractive pitch for a beach volleyball league promised 3:1 ROI in just two years. Thinking this a soul-saving proposition, Snooge was initially game to sink a few million but Spirit IM threw peanut butter in his chocolate.

“Marketing built on aesthetics” she gasped. “Absent health and safeguarding policies” she cried. “Mandatory skimpy uniforms” she shrieked. “Instagram shall hear of it!” And Snoogie backed off.

Into June and with women’s football back on the Euro stage, Snooge tabled a tokenistic sponsorship sum for the grassroots game. Spirit was having none of it. “Half-assed support equals half-assed results,” she sassed. “Do you want to help or do you want it to look like you’re helping?” Fair.

Several more such opportunities came along, but by August old Snoogie was gettin’ it. In September he sponsored a back-to-school-sports campaign in a bid to stem girls’ 65% puberty dropout rate.

By October he was chairing panel events on the business of women’s sport. By Halloween he’d launched The K-Pop Podcast, although that was unrelated.

By November, kudos, credit and even cash were coming his way. Snoogie felt a nip of excitement and thought the fittingest way to thank Spirit IM for her tutorage was to whittle her figurine out of wood. She quickly advised this was creepy AF.

The far corner of his bed chamber was glowing neon and twirling like mad. Most would be perturbed by this visual but old Snoogie was by now so used to the whole haunting malarky that he, with deep exasperation in his voice, challenged the thing to come in and know him better, man.

“Shirley is that you?” he asked in a convenient throwback to Part #2.

“I am the ghost of women’s sport yet to come,” said the shape, “and no-one’s been called Shirley since 1982. My name’s Esther … Esther Jen.”

Snooge rightly suspected he was being led up a culdesac of crude menstrual cycle puns, as Esther Jen began pro gesturing in a heavy rhythm that seemed difficult to predict, one cycle to the next.

As it moved, a single shard of light from a street lamp cut through a crack in the blinds and Spirit’s form lit up to reveal a teenage gymnast, a girl of maybe 14 or 15.

“Aren’t you a little broad to be a gymnast?” asked Snooge, innocently.

“Don’t be so 1976-to-2020,” Spirit said. “We’ve all moved on.”

The Spirit danced and twisted. She never stopped. As she popped and gyrated,  Snoogie remembered sleeping through films like Sliding Doors and The Butterfly Effect and he realised he’d probably seen this story before.

“Spirit,” he voiced nervously, “will you take me to the future and show me what’ll happen if I let up on supporting and investing in women’s sport?

“Yes!” replied the Spirit. “Solid summary – that’ll save everyone at home some time.”

As she twirled, Esther Jen produced a smartphone the size of a child’s head. She fired up something called TikTok and pressed down tight on the screen. Time started speeding up. She did it again. Faster it went. Faster. Faster. Faster. Clunk.

Sweet mercy did this feel like some low-budget time travel. In fact the whole thing felt pretty low-rent but that’s women’s sport for you – even the make-believe version.

Anyway. Esther sped up the scene and the catchy supporting track became inaudible. Jarring. Frightening …

Four seconds passed and suddenly BOOF! The pair disappeared into the tentacles of time; forward to a land they call 2030.

Esther Jen-powered, the pair descended into London City in the balmy December sun. Dodging delivery drones, they soared through an open window and came to land in Snooge’s boardroom on the fifteenth floor.

A dozen avatars had gathered in a pixelated huddle and Spirit Esther, contorting and pirouetting, elegantly motioned that Snooge should join them. He did. He donned a headset and entered the AGM of the women’s game just in time for the stats.

Viewing and revenue figures both best evers but several unfamiliar metrics told a bigger story: ACL injuries down 73%. Player happiness averaged 8.7/10. The wage gap closed 25%. All pro clubs now had maternity policies. The number of female professional players had increased 32% YoY, while 21 more feeder systems than last year reported financial self-sufficiency.

As the readout continued, Snooge removed his headset and met Esther Jen’s oscillating eyeline. “Spirit, it’s wonderful,” he gasped. “What was I worried about?”

“Probs this” she yelled. And in another first-ever she three-finger-pinch-zoomed on her smartphone thus causing the boardroom backdrop to contort and fizz with that Gaussian Blur effect you’ve seen on Canva but don’t know how to use. Esther Jen was queuing up a do-over and old Snoogie knew it good.

Take two. The scene sharpened to reveal the exact same boardroom, only this time it seemed colder. Sadder. Knowing what to do, Snoogie lifted a headset and tuned back into the meet meet. He listened. Forlorn. Deflating. He unmasked.

“Not great, huh?” jiggled Esther. “In this version of the future, folks like you threw moderate cash at the top tier and stopped there. It changed little beyond the elite and as top players got injured, older and pregnant they exited the game. Without proper systems in place the next wave lacked depth and oomph. We stalled.”

“See, you didn’t fund progress,” she finished. “You just scraped a slice off the top.”

As he contemplated the two opposing outcomes, Esther Jen spun up her oversized smartphone and old Snoogie sensed more time travel was afoot. Oh yes. Before you could say Biles II Triple-Double the pair vanished with a pop and reappeared five years hence in a glass room situated exactly between two high school gym halls.

“Lookie here,” floated Esther. “In the left-hand gym we’ve a class of 15-year-olds and 50% are girls. In the right-hand gym just 33% are girls. The tech’s moved on but the stats surely haven’t …”

“Don’t call me Shirley,” fumed Snooge; still squeezing every drop out of that tired 80s joke. “But things were looking good, weren’t they?”

“For a time,” Spirit said, tip-toe-twirling around him. “But distractions multiplied and sport had to work harder to prise adolescents away from screens and a changing academic landscape,” she explained. “As other things got in the way, people lost positivity and enthusiasm. We lost our why.”

Esther flashed her eyes at the sidelines and a trio of female students sat watching. “The first one’s a fabulous runner,” she said, “the second a gymnast and the third played football. But periods, pain, shame and academics in an AI world seeming more a priority … they won’t pick up sport again ‘til their 30s.”

“Oh, Spirit,” wailed Snooge, “how do we ensure the left-hand gym comes to pass?”

“Simple,” Spirit said, “we have to stop being grateful for too little. Over time we need more investment and effort – not less. Threats and distractions are evolving too so we have to move to where the zeitgeist is going … not to where it was last year.”