In hindsight, I accept that anger is possibly not the best emotion to be ruled by when making major life decisions.
But when I resigned from my job last week – a job I genuinely loved – I was so angry, I felt I had no other option.
My job was with Raith Rovers Community Foundation.
It’s the charity attached to the football club that last Monday night announced the signing of David Goodwillie, a man branded a rapist in a civil court.
As a long-time campaigner for women’s rights, as a feminist, but most importantly, as the mother of a daughter, the idea that my football team thought this signing was a good move filled me with an instant and unstoppable rage.
I knew I had to resign from my job, a role I’d taken on only three weeks previously, which involved me delivering a programme in employability skills for out-of-work youngsters in Fife.
My position had become untenable.
The classes I would be teaching were to be held in a room at Stark’s Park, just yards from where the first team trained four days a week.
A decision made for all the wrong reasons
Raith Rovers is a Championship team currently trying to win promotion to the Premiership.
Those in charge knew they needed to end a run of seven draws and get back to winning ways.
David Goodwillie, captain of lower league side Clyde and a proven goal-scorer, was apparently the answer to their problems.
For all those defending Goodwillie and saying he's paid his debt to society – he's paid NOTHING.
His victim didn't get a penny.
And now he stands to walk away with a six-figure payout from Raith Rovers.
Still feeling sorry for him? pic.twitter.com/Dzj905fLDT
— Marie Penman (@mariepenman67) February 6, 2022
But why did it take the withdrawal of their main sponsor, the resignation of several staff, the decision by the women’s team to remove the Raith Rovers name and badge from their strips and near universal criticism to make them see that signing a rapist was a bad idea?
How could it ever be a good one?
Ashamed of Raith Rovers for the first time in my life
I’ve followed football all my life and have watched the highs and lows of Raith Rovers over the years.
My father-in-law David played for the club in the 1960s.
I was at Ibrox for the incredible cup defeat of Celtic in 1994.
And I was in Germany less than a year later to take the photo of that famous half-time scoreboard against Bayern Munich.
But I’ve also watched my team suffer crushing defeats and relegation.
I know it’s only football. But this team has made me feel joy, despair, excitement, disbelief and passion.
Until last week, it had never made me feel ashamed.
To imagine that the chance of a few extra goals was good enough reason to bring in David Goodwillie was a monumental error in judgement by the Rovers board.
And it was made worse by a follow-up statement released on Tuesday that effectively claimed Goodwillie’s past was irrelevant.
The message this sent out – to the world, because the story was picked up by media outlets across Europe and the US – was that violence against women wasn’t that big a deal.
That past transgressions can be overlooked, as long as the offender is good at his job.
Goodwillie’s victim continues to be punished
Meanwhile the victim in this case, Denise Clair, continues to be fair game on social media, where she is called a liar, a gold-digger and far worse.
All because she had the guts to stand up for herself.
Some defend Goodwillie and say he was never convicted of rape – because he was found liable in a civil court.
I would recommend they read the full testimony from that case.
It’s thousands of words long and goes into shocking, painful detail about what happened.
Denise Clair was caught on CCTV cameras falling in the street.
She was unable to stand and wearing no shoes.
But she was led away by Goodwillie and his co-accused, David Robertson, who assured concerned bouncers they were her friends and would make sure she got home safely.
They didn’t.
Instead, the next morning, she woke up naked, alone and in pain, in an unknown flat miles from her home.
The manager and every member of the Raith Rovers board should have been made to read this testimony in full before even thinking about signing the man they tried to welcome to the ‘Raith Rovers family’.
I paid the price of speaking out
Of course, this decision has now been reversed, and David Goodwillie will never play for Raith Rovers.
Instead they’ll have to pay out his contract, which will put the club under severe financial strain.
And unfortunately, it doesn’t look like I will be getting my job back.
My employers at the Raith Rovers Community Foundation weren’t happy about my comments on social media.
Which is sad for me. But if nobody speaks out, this deep-rooted misogyny and disrespect of women will simply continue into the next generation.
I don’t want any other woman to go through the pain and life-destroying consequences of rape.
But I know it will keep happening.
And that makes me nervous every time my teenage daughter gets dressed up for a night on the town.
So yes, I was angry when I quit my job.
And now?
I’m bloody furious. Shouldn’t we all be?
