International Women’s Day 2024: Inspire Inclusion

A few years ago I wrote an article for International Women’s Day. In it, I talked about the total contrast in experiences of me going to Spurs as a child and sitting in the stands there now.

Before I would look around me and see very few female faces amongst the crowd. Now I look around and see thousands of women. Women coming to games with their friends, partners and family, and bringing their sons and daughters to the ‘World Famous Home of the Spurs’. 

The absolute pleasure that it brings me to take both my children to games and watch them have equal experiences is immeasurable. 

Back when I wrote that article the theme was ‘Embrace Equity.’ It was about women and men having equity as well as equality. 

Inspire Inclusion

This year, the theme of International Women’s Day is ‘Inspire Inclusion’. When I read this year’s theme, it made me realise just how far we have come in the years since I wrote that article. Back then it was all about having equal opportunities for my son and daughter, giving them access to the same experiences. Allowing them to know that they both belong equally in all sporting settings if that is where they want to be. 

Now I still feel the importance of that, more and more every day in fact, as my children grow older. However, now they know that they have a right to be there. Now it’s about elevating women and girls’ participation and achievement in sport and inspiring them to feel it is their place. This comes in all areas of the beautiful game as well as across all sports. 

Education

Last term, Evie came home from school and proudly told me that she and her class were learning about podcasts. They were being taught how to write, produce and market their own content. The day after, when I picked her up from school, her teacher asked to see me. She told me that during the lesson, Evie had shared with the class that ‘Mummy makes podcasts’ and she had explained that I make one for the Premier League as well as FPL Family and Fantasy Football Scout. Her teacher asked if I would like to help with the children’s learning and whether it was ok for them to listen to our pods in lessons. Of course, I was more than happy to do this. At that moment, I realised how lucky I was. Every day I get to do a job that I love. I make podcasts and produce videos and article content for some of the biggest organisations in football, with some of the best people in the game. I have always been really proud of how far I have come since standing in a classroom teaching history all those years ago. But that moment made me realise that I have made my children proud, too. I have, without realising, helped them to stop seeing ceilings and see all careers and all the things that they want to do as achievable. 

I normally shy away from taking credit for things, preferring to tell the world that I am just part of a big team doing something great. That’s 100% true. But with my children, I have inspired them to believe in themselves and each other. Inclusion for them is normal; Mum working in what was historically a male-dominated world is not something that they realise.

In fact, in the FPL Pod, I have Kelly Somers there, too, so they hear two female voices. They believe football is for everyone and it is. I want to make sure that is a message that spans not just my family, but the wider community. Inspiring girls to take on the equality that previous generations have been fighting for and dive head first into all sports and, even broader still, all areas of life that they want to. They have choices, so let’s inspire that inclusion for the next generation. 

Football is a beautiful game. FPL is just as beautiful. It doesn’t matter where you live, the background you come from, the language you speak, how old you are, the colour of your skin or how you define yourself. It is a game that can in many ways lead the charge for inspiring inclusion.

Let’s keep smashing those glass ceilings.