Meet Freya!

My Footballing Journey

I started playing football at just 5 years old at my local sports center and fell in love with the game pretty much immediately. I went to Saturday sessions every week and at the age of 7, I joined my first team which was a local boys grassroots team. I played for this team until I was 11 years old and it was at this age that I joined my first girls team.

By the time I was 12 years old, I had joined my second girls team and was playing for this grassroots side, West Bromwich Albion’s Development Center and my County. Even with football taking up pretty much my entire life - I would often be playing 5 or 6 times a week, I could not really ever see myself having a career in football. I knew that I was not good enough to pursue a professional playing career and because I could not see many women in football-centered roles, I didn't even know what other roles were available for me within the game.

At 16, I joined my first adult side in Tier 7 and this was an eye-opening experience to me, as it highlighted the difference between youth and adult football. It also really hit home for me that men’s football was often given priority. I distinctly remember turning up to pretty much unplayable pitches because the men’s team and even the boy’s youth had been given priority over the women on our own pitch.

Despite having experienced some unfair treatment playing women’s football, I am ashamed to admit that I was not even a real fan of women’s football until the summer of 2022. I had always been a die-hard Portsmouth fan, (unfortunately) yet I could not name a single one of the players from the women’s team. I might have seen a Lioness game or two but I could not name more than 6 or 7 players - something that is embarrassing for someone who was so football mad to admit.

Watching the Lionesses bring the trophy home was a hugely emotional moment for me and changed my entire perspective on football. Watching these games changed something in me and I realised that the Lionesses winning was even more special to me because I could relate to these players more than I could the men. If they could overcome adversity and inspire the nation with the massive victory, why could I not do something to make a difference? I decided that I wanted to make a difference in women's football in this country just like the Lionesses had done.

That summer I also joined then Tier 5 side Worcester City Women FC - one of the only fully female owned clubs in the UK. Joining this club was such a turning point for me, as not only did it massively develop me as a player, it also showed me that a career in women’s football really could be a tangible prospect. For the first time, I could see women in important roles in a football club and it made me believe that one day I could do something like that too.

After a year with Worcester City, I had to leave the club as I left home to go to university. At university, my footballing horizons were widened as I joined the university football club and met players that had all had wildly different football journeys to myself. The majority of our journey’s had something in common however: the idea of feeling left behind or not fully belonging in football because we were women.

It was around this time that I began toying with the idea of doing something to increase the coverage surrounding women’s football. National league football was already something I was beginning to become more familiar with as I talked to players at university about their external ambitions in Tier 3 and 4, and saw Worcester City fight for, and achieve promotion to this league. At this stage, I didn’t even have a concrete idea about what I wanted to do, let alone the confidence and skill set to pull it off. I decided to shelve the idea and come back to it at a later date.

A real turning point for me was being accepted into the 6th cohort of the BUCS Women’s Leadership Programme at the beginning of my second year. This programme not only has helped to improve my professional skills but has also allowed me to be surrounded by amazing like minded women who share the same desire to make a change in women’s football. Another important message that this programme has instilled on me is the importance of ‘knowing your why’ before doing something.

I knew pretty much straight away what my ‘why’ was - I wanted to make a change in women’s football and make it a better sport for everyone involved. With this in mind, I began to discuss with one of my closest university football friends and fellow Leadership Programme member, Maya, the idea of creating our own platform. I knew that Maya, just like myself, had a passion for the women’s game and was dedicated to improving it for the future generations. We both had very different journeys into women's football and we wanted to show the diverse nature of the women’s game.

We both agreed that whilst coverage of the women’s game had massively improved following the Euros, the lower leagues were increasingly being left behind. Whilst international stars like Beth Mead and Keira Walsh were becoming household names with big sponsorship deals, there was very little coverage of the National League - a real tragedy when you look at the amount of talent within the league.

These conversations lead to us launching Two On The Ball in January 2025 - a platform dedicated to improving the coverage of the FAWNL and ensuring that people’s voices within these leagues can be heard. So far this journey has been incredibly rewarding and we have been so lucky to have received such a good response across the entire FAWNL community. Looking to the future, I want to continue growing Two On The Ball and ensure that the players, managers and staff within the FAWNL receive the coverage that they deserve.

This journey has already been so exciting and I cannot wait to see where it will lead me.