Sheffield Wednesday: "I hope you end up like Sarah Everard" - Owls fan hit with vile torrent of abuse

On Monday a faceless Twitter account unleashed a series of angry messages to the personal inbox of 26-year-old Emma, a lifelong Owls fan who under the circumstances did not wish to disclose her full name.

One read: ‘I hope you ended up like Sarah Evered’ [sic], a reference to the tragic case of Sarah Everard, a 33-year-old woman who was kidnapped, raped and brutally murdered by police officer Wayne Couzens in March 2021.

Other messages included ‘U hate men but are watching a men’s game stay in the kitchen stupid b****’ and ‘I hope you get assaulted at football’.

Having sent a further message that read: ‘Be a woman n go get yourself assaulted or something?’, the sender wrote ‘Actually no one would rape your ugly ass’.

The vile stream of messages were sent in response to a conversation around Doncaster Rovers’ decision to offer a cut-price ticket deal to female supporters.

Speaking to The Star, a shell-shocked Emma said: “I’d actually never had anyone message me anything like that before, the really direct ‘stay in the kitchen, we don’t want you at football’ sort of stuff.

“I tend to get a lot of sleazy messages. I actually find those worse. To be honest this was so awful and over the top I could almost shrug it off, but not everyone can.

“The messages I get that worry me are asking whether I live alone, whether I have a boyfriend, men telling me they’re going to see me at a match. That makes me more nervous.”

Emma has since been made an SWFC advocate for Her Game Too, a growing national campaign that aims to fight sexism within football.

She said: “The replies to my tweet show there’s a consensus and I think there is a growing awareness of this sort of thing,”

“Initiatives like Her Game Too are really important. They messaged me within an hour of me getting those messages, offered support and went about messaging the club I believe him to be associated with.”

Victoria Wood, Wednesday club ambassador at Her Game Too, said: “The abuse received by Em is worrying, harmful and abhorrent.

“The threats in the messages are severe and Em has reported them to Twitter. Whilst the messages received were far more shocking than so-called 'everyday sexism', these comments are not as rare as people might think.

“To mention the name of Sarah Everard, at a time when women are still grieving for her and acutely aware of the dangers surrounding them, is repulsive.

“As a campaign, we want to make women feel that football is a safe place where they can enjoy the game without prejudice or abuse. We have reached out to Em and she is going to work with us going forward as an Advocate to spot abuse online and in the ground and report it.

“There is no room for sexism - or discrimination of any form - in football.”

More information on Her Game Too can be found at www.hergametoo.co.uk