Taking up football as a young girl changed my life

Former England captain turned coach Casey Stoney tells why she’s passionate about supporting grassroots football

FEELING the football fever after the Lionesses’ epic Euro 2022 win? If it’s inspired the kids in your family to give the game a go, former England captain Casey Stoney is all for it.

Basildon-born Casey – who now lives in California, where she’s the head coach for San Diego Wave FC – says taking up football as a young girl “changed my life”.

And she doesn’t just mean setting her up for a career in the sport. “It gave me purpose,” she says, plus a long list of other positives.

“It gave me social skills, because I was working as part of a team. I had to manage my time, it gave me drive, it made me goal-set,” adds the 40-year-old, who has three children – seven-year-old twins Teddy and Tilly and four-year-old Willow – with her partner and fellow ex-footballer, Meg Harris. “It gave me so many transferable skills that I now use in my job.”

So it’s no surprise she’s passionate about encouraging kids to try it out. “Especially in this day and age, where there’s so much more access to technology. Getting young people out doing an activity, exercising, even educating them about nutrition and things like that, becomes so important.

“Even just playing with your friends, it’s so important.”

Aware sports clubs can seem out of reach for many families, Casey has teamed up with McDonald’s Fun Football programme, which is providing more than 10.5 million hours of coaching to kids aged five to 11 across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales over the next four years.

“I didn’t grow up with a lot of money. And from a gender point of view, it’s about equality.

“Boys and girls, all ability levels, socioeconomic backgrounds – it doesn’t matter,” Casey says of the programme.

“I think that’s so important to encourage more young children to play, and to know they can have free access, and that anyone can do it.”

Here Casey gives her advice:

ON THE POWER OF VISIBILITY

Take this as an example: when my little boy was about three, I was still playing at the time, so we were going to women’s games all the time. We eventually ended up watching a men’s Premier