An INFLUENTIAL member of Jersey’s sporting community, Libby Barnett has first-hand experience, both personally and professionally, regarding the growth of women’s sport in Jersey.
The Island Games gold medallist and former captain of the Jersey’s FA Women’s team, has seen the local sporting landscape quickly evolve for women in a fairly short period. Re-iterating a caption she recently saw online framing a packed stadium watching female football, Miss Barnett said she understands what it means to be “young enough to see the change and old enough to understand it”.
Growing up, it was “very normal” to be the only girl to be playing football in the school playground, Miss Barnett said she is “incredibly proud” to have witnessed the “great strides” being made for female players since then in sport altogether, not just football.
“I understand what it previously was like, so I can really be grateful for how far and reflective for how far we’ve come.
“In my background, it was very normal to be the only girl, or perhaps only one of a handful of girls, that was playing football in school playgrounds on the estates, and we didn’t have local girls’ leagues.
“You could join the senior league when you could play open age football from 16 but the opportunities were quite limited unless you wanted to play in a mixed setting.
“So having so many now ‘girls only’ environments, as well as mixed competitive environments, is really quite special.”
Using her roles as non-executive director on the JFA board and coach to a junior Jersey Wanderers side, Miss Barnett uses her knowledge to inspire future generations.
“My mantra is ‘if you can’t see it, you can’t be it’ and I’m a huge advocate for being the change that you want to see.
“I didn’t have many female role models growing up involved in sport and physical activity, predominately watching male sport on TV.”
But change is still needed, Miss Barnett emphasised, with issues such as facilities still making it difficult for women’s sport to progress in the Island.
“The challenges we have in Jersey that we have lots of great sports spaces, but they they’re very dated. They haven’t had the financial backing in order to upgrade them to modern-day standards. And that’s not just from a female facility perspective, but also in terms of disability access.”
Using her club Jersey Wanderers as an example, where she is the head of football, she said facilities, such as toilets, are an issue.
“The fact that they are no longer fit for purpose is positive because it highlights demand.
“There’s one female toilet [at Wanderers] that caters for around 80 females, but there’s also one male toilet which caters for around 320 males in our club. So, the facilities generally aren’t fit for purpose any more, and that’s because a lot of facilities were designed with lower numbers in mind.
“Now we’ve got so many more people involved in sport and physical activity, which is a huge positive, we just don’t have the facilities that are able to keep up with the demand. But that’s a nice challenge to have.”
Time for females in sport is also a barrier, especially those with a family or new mums, but efforts are being made by various organisations in Jersey to adapt and cater for women in a new chapter of their lives, Miss Barnett said.
“Trying to find the dynamic of how to find time for their own sport and physical activity in a new chapter of their lives is challenging.
“There’s lots of great sport organisations who are specifically welcoming and adapting to allow new and expected mothers to exercise in spaces that feel safe, that are appropriate for them, that cater to their childcare needs.”
“It’s just so incredible that now you can turn on the TV and watch female sports, on social media, you can watch female sport, kind of at your fingertips.
“And I think that we need to be better at reflecting that in leadership and leadership positions in sport here.
Reflecting on her sporting journey overall, including as a leader on and off the pitch, Miss Barnett said she would like Jersey to develop more females in sports leadership who can use their “first-hand insight” to positively impact the sporting landscape for women in Jersey.
“I would really love us to develop more females involved in leadership positions and decision-making roles within sport.
Predominantly, we see lots of committees made up of traditional structures where they have a chairperson, president or chief executive position held by males.
Though this is “changing slowly”, Miss Barnett added, Jersey does have some “fantastic examples” of women in successful sports leadership positions such as Jersey Cricket’s first female chief executive, Sarah Gomersall, and Juanita Adlington, who is the joint-president of Jersey Golf, alongside Steven Bowen.
“There are some really fantastic examples but I would love to see more females in these leadership positions, where their power and influence can really positively impact local sport and give that first-hand insight into what it is like being a female in Jersey trying to participate in sport. That is so important.”
Miss Barnett is also the sports programmes manager at Jersey Sport and explained that over half-a-million pounds of grant funding is being allocated to the development of sports groups in 2025 from the charity’s Supportin Sport initiative.
