Growing up in a small Welsh village nestled at the foot of rolling green hills, the local football club was the heartbeat of our community. I can still feel the sting of grazed knees and the bite of early mornings spent chasing a ball across the frozen pitch, hardened by the unforgiving Welsh weather.
Grassroots football was woven into my childhood from the very beginning; I played for my school, my village, the local town and any other team that would have me. For nearly a decade, my weeks were filled with late-night training sessions, long car journeys across the county and weekend matches that saw medals stack high with pride on my bedroom shelf.
I loved everything about the game: the competitiveness, the community, my teammates and my coaches. But when I hit puberty and my body began to change, so did my relationship with football. Embarrassment crept in, the fear of judgement took hold, and the usual teenage doubts about how I looked, how I moved and how I would be perceived by others (especially the boys I fancied) began to cloud the joy football once gave me. For the first time, I started to wonder whether the sport I had devoted most of my childhood to truly had space for someone like me, for a girl.
Despite the sense of belonging I felt in team huddles, pep talks, and those euphoric post-match highs that occasionally landed our team photo in the local newspaper, I couldn’t shake the feeling that something was missing. Beyond the warm and supportive cocoon of grassroots football, I never saw women in the professional game. Not on TV or magazines, there were no shirts with female players’ names in the shops, no women referees or coaches on the pitch and no visible pathway to a professional contract. Truthfully, I didn’t even know women could play football professionally until my adult years. The only time I’d see women involved in professional football was as ‘WAGs’ papped in the stands with curly blow-dries and skinny white jeans.
Meanwhile, my bedroom walls were plastered with posters of David Beckham and Cristiano Ronaldo, while the boys in my year were scouted for trials at professional clubs. My dad would take me to watch his team, Hereford FC, where I’d stand shoulder to shoulder with crowds of lairy men and on Saturday nights, BBC’s Match of the Day would light up our family living room. My brother and I would buy sticker packs of male players from the corner shop, and on special occasions, my school would wheel in the television so we could watch the Men’s World Cup during class.
Football was the root of so many of my happiest memories, but there was always a grumbling feeling that it belonged to the boys, and girls like me were simply borrowing it. Welcomed for a time, tolerated perhaps, but eventually nudged to the sidelines as we grew older and the game became more competitive. When I reached secondary school, football was no longer part of the girls' P.E. curriculum. It was classed as a boys' sport, reinforced by the kind of messaging that once powered Yorkie bars. Simply put, it’s not for girls.
One evening after training, our coach gathered us inside the men’s changing rooms (the only changing rooms) for an announcement. Our team captain was leaving for another club, which meant the coveted armband was up for grabs. My heart pounded in my chest as my cheeks flushed with anticipation. I tried not to get my hopes up, I wasn’t the star player by any means, but I was loyal, passionate and a team player – qualities that, in my humble opinion, made me a decent choice for captain.
“Jess!”
“I vote Jess!”
“It’s got to be Jess!”
I was thirteen when my teammates called out my name and handed me the stretchy, black-and-white armband. I gripped it with both hands, feeling the heavy weight of pride and gratitude that I still carry with me almost two decades on. Football was more than just goals and glory; it shaped my identity, built my confidence and encouraged me to be a leader.
But just one year later, at fourteen years old, I hung up my captain’s armband and my football boots for good. Every time I pulled on my kit and saw how my body was changing, how it seemed to fill out my shirt differently than my teammates’, the knot of insecurity in my stomach would tighten. If a teenage boy stood on the sidelines, I’d beg my coach to sub me off. Not because I was tired, but because I was mortified to be seen running in front of them. I wasn’t ready to walk away from the game, but the internalised shame, the growing discomfort in my own skin, and the lack of visible role models built a wall around me that eventually felt too high to climb over.
That’s why watching this year’s Women’s EUROS feels so powerful. For the first time, Wales’s women’s team will play in the tournament after qualifying for their first-ever major tournament. Finally, young Welsh girls from small towns and villages like mine can see themselves not just on the sidelines or in the stands, but at the very heart of the game.
Although the women’s game has made huge strides in recent years, research by Dove and Nike found 45% of girls are dropping out of sport by the age of 14 due to body confidence concerns. While a survey by Starling Bank found that, similar to me, 30% of girls are hanging up their football boots by their late teens, citing reasons including body insecurities, fear of judgement and seeing no clear pathway into professional sport.
Georgia Theodoulou, an Arsenal super-fan, is the lead for Wales and Sports at Our Streets Now, a youth-led project working towards a vision of a world free from public sexual harassment. She told me of similar barriers she experienced in accessing football growing up in Wales,
“I was a sporty girl growing up. I loved it and was a huge football fan, but my only experience of playing football was in my back garden with my dad, because there was no girls' football team in my school or my local town in Wales.”
She shared how gender-stereotyping in football is something she comes across often in her work, emphasising the importance of organisations like Her Game Too and Our Streets Now in removing barriers for girls in football and sports through education and changing culture:
“It's all well and good people doing the work to encourage more girls to take up sport and funding pitches, equipment and coaches but if the culture that we're sending those girls into doesn't value them, respect them or keep them safe then we're just sending them in like lambs to the slaughter.”
Her Game Too is an award-winning campaign tackling sexism in sport. Caz May, CEO of the organisation, is passionate about ensuring girls feel safe and supported playing football:
“If we could tell our younger selves anything, it would be to hold on and keep believing - because the game is finally getting the respect and love it deserves.
We understand the issues around feminine hygiene and body confidence, so we communicate regularly with sportswear and sanitary brands to support their products designed specifically for female athletes.
The success of the Lionesses is a huge stepping stone towards a better future for women in sport, but we still have so much to do to. We are grateful to all trailblazers in women’s sport who are paving the way for the next generation, so they don’t have to face the same barriers that we did growing up.”
With England’s Lionesses, the current EUROS champions, already inspiring a generation of girls to take up space on the pitch, it now feels like Wales’s moment. For the first time, young Welsh girls can look to the world stage and see their own nation represented.
Roopa Vyas, the founder of Her Game Too Cymru takes pride in this historic event:
“Wales reaching the EUROS for the first time is more than a footballing moment - it’s a powerful symbol of belonging. For girls who’ve faced judgment, stereotypes or felt pushed out of the game, this shows them they’re seen and that they do belong.
At Her Game Too Cymru, we work to break down those barriers - whether it’s around body image, access, or online abuse. Representation like this isn’t just inspiring, it’s essential. When girls in Wales see Welsh women on that stage, they start to believe they can stay in the game and thrive in it.”
It's a feeling echoed by Theodoulou, “I think the impact in the legacy that this Welsh women's team are going to have on women's football and young girls in Wales is honestly incredible.”
These players aren’t just chasing glory; they’re breaking down the barriers that once pushed so many of us out. Watching Wales step onto the pitch in Switzerland will be a full-circle moment for fourteen-year-old me, gripping that captain’s armband. It’s more than representation; it’s a moment of healing and a message to every girl in villages like mine that we belong in this game. And this time, no one can take that away.
The underdogs are playing to win.
