‘Trolls called me ugly, but now I am in good place’
Ashleigh Goddard reveals hurt of internet abuse after she won a Wayne Rooney street skills competition
Wayne Rooney’s Street Striker.
From 2008 to 2010, Rooney was not only becoming England’s all-time leading goalscorer but filming Sky’s search for the country’s most complete street footballer. Growing up, he had honed his skills on the estates and in Stockport the games of his childhood were blown up: the Tower Block Challenge, where contestants had to volley balls dropped from the apartment’s balconies into nearby skips, and an obstacle course in a garage, shooting down petrol tanks from car roofs.
Goddard was on standby for England Under-19s and at Arsenal academy when she auditioned for what she calls “the Rooney thing”. She explained: “I just thought, I’ll just go for a game of football in the summer holiday, but there were hundreds of people. I was naive: even up to the final I was, like, this can’t happen – not to me. This started as a bit of fun in the summer and it just escalated.
“At Arsenal, we trained at the men’s training ground. I’d seen a lot of footballers before, and knew to be professional around them, but it’s
Wayne Rooney. He would go out of his way to mix with us and he was often doing keepy-uppies with us in. I was, like, I’m glad this is getting filmed.”
Goddard won the whole thing but for the next decade felt ashamed. After filming ended, clips began circulating on YouTube. “Suddenly you see 10 bad comments, then 100, then 1,000,” she says. “What happened? I just had a bit of fun. I expected parts of it: ‘You won because you’re a girl. It was a fix’. That didn’t faze me. What I didn’t expect was: ‘You’re fat, you’re ugly’.
“I massively lost self-esteem, became very body-conscious, sad. I didn’t want to tell people because I was embarrassed. I’d get asked for interviews – ‘where is she now?’ – and wouldn’t want to do it. ‘Triggered’ is a bit strong, but it makes you think back. I wouldn’t say it affected me for 10 years, but I struggled. The first thing in my head was the negatives.”
Only this year, after watching Little Mix singer Jesy Nelson’s Odd One Out documentary on internet trolls, did Goddard reveal to her family the extent of the abuse. “My mum was so upset, and it was hard for me to see. ‘Why didn’t you tell me? I wanted to be there for you’. I was embarrassed, and I put that first when I should have told her. I wish I was strong enough for it to not affect me like it did, because what actually came from it was a lot of inspiring girls. I had a once-in-a-lifetime experience that no one can take away from me. I’m in a good place. Thinking about the Rooney thing as a negative is silly.”
After Street Striker, Emma Hayes, then at Arsenal, helped Goddard win a football scholarship in the US, where she qualified as a PE teacher. At 22, she signed for Reading, playing alongside Fran Kirby, then London Bees. “It was difficult because there’s not massive money in the women’s game. If you’re not in a team that’s full time, you have to balance it. I needed money.”
She became a PE teacher and was Bees captain until dislocating a shoulder in her third season. “The medical care wasn’t… They didn’t really have any. I waited 2½ months for an NHS scan, then another 10 for surgery. I would literally tape my arm to myself to carry on playing.”
Thereafter she put football first. She signed a full-time contract in Denmark and one in Cyprus before Palace.
We met on the eve of the Lionesses’ Germany friendly and Wembley Way is lined with portraits of those Goddard played with at youth level: Lucy Bronze, Toni Duggan, Jordan Nobbs. “Nothing’s been handed to them,” she says. “To see that they’ve made it is inspirational. Full-time teaching is different – you do more and more for them, to the point where
I was turning up to training tired. I love teaching but I love football more. I want to see how high I can push it.”
I wince slightly as a bus horn blares. Goddard barely notices, gleefully juggling the ball, later pointing out that doing these tricks on roadside is small fry compared to doing the same in a car wash, dancing a hopscotch through a tide of foam, before volleying it into a car boot – all in front of Rooney.
‘I wish I was strong enough for it to not affect me like it did’