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Judy Murray has held many roles – player, coach, Fed Cup captain, mother to Britain’s most successful tennis player and even Strictly Come Dancing contestant. But the constant (perhaps barring the Strictly gig) has been her aim to usher more young people into sport. Her latest incarnation, as interviewer and host of the second season of Driving Force, is no different. The series, which has been picked up by ITV, profiles and promotes prominent sportswomen, with Murray quizzing them on the influences that shaped their pioneering careers.
Throughout, she does not take herself too seriously – even donning a football shirt over her clothes and falling to her knees in mock celebration after taking a penalty in the first episode – and she is knowledgeable as an interviewer. Alongside her thoughtful questions and the way she makes space for the women, including Tracey Neville, Denise Lewis and Maggie Alphonsi, to tell their own stories, she is someone who her subjects can relate to. She, too, has dealt with the challenges of being a woman in top-level sport, both when encountering intense scrutiny on the sidelines during Andy’s career and being underestimated as a coach throughout her own career.
Taking up the role of a vocal woman in sport was not something she was always comfortable with, after years of being branded too aggressive or pushy. In years past, she even rejected opportunities to speak out about inequality in sport, doubting her own ability or desire to front up on what she believed in, despite her expertise. But Murray has since found her voice as an unapologetic and fervent advocate for women in the industry, and Driving Force encapsulates that.
Though the series has the glitzy trappings of major sponsorship and a trailer launch, which featured on the big screen at Piccadilly Circus, Murray’s typically hands-on approach brings it back to what she has always been committed to – tangible impact at grass-roots level. There is much talk throughout the first episode – in which she helps tell the story of Eniola Aluko’s career and battle with the Football Association to expose her experiences of racism in football – about “needing to see it to be it”.
And rather than offering up the concept as a vapid cliche, Driving Force and Murray are putting their money where their mouth is, launching a school tour alongside the episodes. Murray will hit the road to share the good word of sport with girls across the country. She has never been shy about mucking in. Murray will travel to schools encouraging girls to pursue careers in sport, and will help students link up directly with organisations offering work experience.
Later this year, Driving Force is also launching a one-day festival with similar aims, and Murray will be fronting that too. The plans are an extension of Murray’s lifelong commitment to create community engagement in tennis and sport more generally, always looking at how you can translate success at the top of the sport to increased opportunities for young people. She invested £300,000 of her own money in the launch of her initiative “Miss Hits” in 2014, which aimed at getting more girls playing tennis, and has not been afraid to criticise the Lawn Tennis Association for, in her view, failing to capitalise on the success her sons have had.
Beyond tennis, she also has a stake in community-owned Lewes FC – the first football club to implement equal pay for its women’s and men’s sides. Murray knows the power of her voice, and when she accepted her role as team captain for Great Britain’s Fed Cup team in 2011, she said she did so to raise the profile of female coaches – who remain underrepresented despite the outward-facing equality at the top level of the sport. It helped her move away from being known exclusively as Andy and Jamie’s most emphatic supporter court-side, and made her one of the most prominent female coaches in British sport.
This latest reinvention retains those values, ushering women into the limelight on primetime TV, and opening sport up to more girls.
Judy Murray finds her voice as a driving force for women in sport
Murray knows the challenges of being a woman in top-level sport and is determined to break down the barriers to usher in a new generation