WATCHING FOOTBALL WITH MY DAUGHTER CHANGED EVERYTHING

Wednesday, 30th March 2023. 11pm. The person standing next to me in row F of the East Stand at Stamford Bridge is jumping up and down on the spot and furiously waving a blue flag. There is ecstasy on her face as she joins 15,000 others in bellowing out the anthem, “Blue is the colour, football is the game”, to celebrate the Chelsea Women’s side. I look again at the person next to me, still jumping up and down. She’s got long blonde hair and glasses and is wearing a Chelsea shirt with Cuthbert 22 on the back. A Champions League semifinal. Going to penalties. A stadium all as one. What a night. 

I put my arm around my ten-year-old daughter Ava and remember that it’s a school night, and she should be dreaming in bed. Some things in life can wait, but going to a Champions League semifinal with your daughter is the stuff that dreams are made of…

You hear people say football is their life. I’m pretty sure I’ve never said that out loud, but the evidence is pretty damning.

It’s dominated my weekends since I was a kid, and then, as I moved out of my teens, everything felt like it was gearing up to going to the match. When someone started paying me actual money for knowing stuff about it, it truly became 24/7. I even met my wife Rebecca through it (she’s the sister-in-law of the mate I went to games with), and somehow her first impression of me wasn’t ruined by the numerous pints I’d had earlier in the day watching Yeovil v Derby. 

At the tail end of 2011, I returned from ticking White Hart Lane off the stadiums’ list when Rebecca uttered the words, “I’m pregnant”. I’ll never forget that moment of sheer delirium and sheer panic; no matter how much you plan or hope for it, it still totally surprises you. And life does indeed get serious. In between ensuring my wife was always comfortable, I had to prep and plan and work out what the hell exactly are an ISOFIX base and an epidural. The NCT classes helped, even if they did cut into most of EURO 2012.

I learnt many of life’s emotions going through various ups and downs of watching the beautiful game with my grandad and dad. The days leading up to the match, the excitement of knowing the day was a match day, the unpredictability of 90 minutes that sometimes sparked joy, sometimes despair and sometimes somewhere in between. That was something I, as a father, wanted to pass on and share.

The football I experienced growing up was a game dominated by males. On the pitch, in the stands, on the telly. So when me and Rebecca found out we were having a girl, I knew the path for her would be different than mine. I certainly wasn’t disappointed or thinking she was going to sit and play with dolls while I was at the match, but I knew her upcoming experience with football was not something I would always be able to relate to, and I worried that wouldn’t make me as good a father. Even then, I wondered if I could eventually persuade her that a game was still beautiful if someone near her might start singing ‘Get your tits out for the lads’ at a female official.

That was all to come. In late August 2012, Ava was born, and everything changed. Thankfully I’d mastered the ISOFIX base, and we drove back from the hospital with the rest of our lives ahead of us. There were an awful lot of nappies, sleepless nights and feelings of constant dread to get through before I could even think of holding her small hand by a football pitch where 22 people run around and kick a ball. Amongst it, all Yeovil were having their most successful season ever, and while awaydays weren’t as plentiful, they were certainly more successful. After we somehow won a Division Three play-off final at Wembley, mentally and physically drained, I lay down next to Ava and told her the team I had grown up watching, mostly in non-league, was somehow in the second tier of English football. Maybe she wouldn’t a) get laughed at for saying who she supports, b) have to explain why, or c) curse her dad for the rest of her life for passing this affliction on. Or, as I still worried, maybe she just wouldn’t get it all.

I didn’t realise then, but that was very much the peak for my relationship with Yeovil Town FC. It’s a complicated story which I detail in ‘Yeovil Town - My Grandad, Dad and Me’ in the award-winning podcast series GIANT. As a result, I joined the Supporters Trust board at non-league Hampton & Richmond in 2017, a club just over the river from our family home.

One of my favourite pictures of Ava as a child is her in a full football kit, pointing at and clearly telling off one of the many boys in her football training. I’d signed her up for a Saturday morning club in the hope of getting her involved. She was the only girl in a group of a dozen, and I’m sure that was why it was ultimately short-lived, and she didn’t want to carry it on. A different path, indeed.

I was determined, though, and took her to her first ever football game—Hampton & Richmond Borough v Concord Rangers. On reflection, she was just that bit too young. But filled full of fizzy sweets and sugary drinks, she got through the 90 minutes without getting too bored. She looked like a proper person with the HRBFC kit on. I was one proud dad but wasn’t sure it had provided that wow factor that would bring her back; maybe non-league football was a little too niche. 

She came to the occasional game after that, but she wasn’t tugging at my arm as I left the house on a Saturday morning. Did I mind too much? Selfishly I didn’t. Football at the weekends was rapidly becoming the thing Daddy did alone and with his mates and a few too many pints. More on that later.

I did try to expand her football horizons and took her to some England games at Wembley, and we even went to France and back in a day to go and watch England v Scotland in the 2019 Women’s World Cup. She certainly enjoyed the trips and the occasion, but it didn’t seem to spark that passion and dedication I was hoping for. Maybe I was being unrealistic, she was just a kid after all, and perhaps I was unfairly judging her by my particular brand of obsessiveness. She had her own interests to pursue, like watching Animal Crossing and collecting Squishamallows.

“I did enjoy going to watch Hampton & Richmond with my dad, but I wasn’t as into it. I enjoyed playing football at school but watching it wasn’t as much fun as playing it with my friends. The boys were always so competitive on the playground, and I most enjoyed it when I was playing in our school team with the other girls. It started to change when we went to watch Chelsea Women’s team; they were the nearest to where we lived. This was where I realised football could really be for girls.”

Ava is telling me this on the sofa in our front room. She has a slightly bemused look throughout, as she’s used to her dad interviewing actual footballers and can’t quite work out why people would want to read about her. I reassure her that her story is important.

 “I could even get to meet the players after the game and have my photo with them; everything around it seemed really fun.” 

I loved seeing Ava’s joy in briefly meeting the likes of Sam Kerr, Fran Kirby and Guro Reiten, as it reminded me of when I was a kid chatting to the Yeovil players post-match. I remember getting starstruck back then, and these were just non-league footballers with jobs! The players she was getting pics with were genuinely some of the best on the planet. The football was of an elite level and a joy to watch. The feel-good factor extended to off the pitch, the atmosphere in and around Kingsmeadow was always a positive one, all different types of people with smiles on their faces. 

This was in stark contrast to what I was used to. I’ll be honest, the air of tension, hostility and sometimes downright menace that hangs over men’s football was something I, at times, enjoyed experiencing. Always us v them, a load of swearing and daftness all fuelled by reassuringly expensive continental lager and, for some, even more expensive South American accelerants.

Those early carefree trips to watch Chelsea Women might have lit the kindling, but the women’s EUROs in 2022 set the bonfire alight. It was also a galvanising experience for an old football addict like myself, and to watch its influence unfold in real time on my then-nine-year-old daughter was beautiful to see.

“I’d seen my dad get really excited during the men's EUROs in 2021, so I was very excited myself about the Women’s EUROs in 2022. I went to the Norway game, but Dad was ill, so I went with my mum, and we won 8–0. Every game, me and my friends got more interested; players like Stanway, Toone, Russo, Williamson and, of course, Fran Kirby were becoming our heroes.  We watched the final on a big screen at Bestival, and when we won, Daddy put me on his shoulders, and we celebrated. I was so happy. I understood how happy football can make you feel.”

It can never be said enough how much of an impact Serina Weigman and her players had that wonderful summer. Ava wasn’t just tugging my arm to go to football games on a match day, she was checking the dates on FotMob and asking if we could get tickets weeks in advance. Soon we (Ava’s mum had also got the bug!) watched them play Real Madrid at Kingsmeadow, and we were even in the away end at the Emirates when Sam Kerr nodded home a late equaliser. 

“Watching football in person made me understand the game better and become a better footballer. I even did tricks on the boys at school in the playground. Through my local football club, I got to be mascot for the game against Manchester United. I stood in the same tunnel as Toone and Russo, and another Lioness, Jess Carter, held my hand as we walked onto the pitch. Daddy showed me a picture of him as a mascot for Yeovil Town when he was little—I definitely looked better!

I tried to get my dad to take me Lyon for the Quarter-Final 1st Leg, but he said, “It was too expensive, and I had to go to school”, but we had amazing tickets for the 2nd leg at Stamford Bridge. It was a really tough game, though, and Lyon scored in extra time…”

The opponents, Lyon, were winning 2–1 on aggregate, and I was working out how I was going to console my daughter on the Tube back from Fulham Broadway. At the final moment, VAR intervened, Chelsea were awarded and scored a penalty, and we were into a shootout. 

"I spent most of the penalties watching her swing on the emotional pendulum, willing her team to win to experience that immense feeling of delirium only football can give you."

The keeper Ann-Katrin Berger was the hero for Chelsea, and Ava overflowed with joy; this was her team, her moment where it all really really clicked. 

In less than 10 minutes, she had gone from rock bottom to the highest high, watching other girls on the biggest stage. I looked at Ava and saw myself, 12 years old and delirious, at Edgar Street watching Yeovil Town win a game that, in effect, saved the club. That night reminded me how incredible football can be at a time when I really needed it. 

A few months earlier, I had gone to the match with my mates. I drank too much again and made an almighty show of myself. The path I’d gone down with men’s football had got very narrow and dark, running parallel with a much more positive one I was walking with Ava in the women's game. When I went to the match with Ava and Rebecca, I not only had the responsibility to look after them but also a desire to take in the moments. The positivity around the women’s game was enough to push away my dwindling mental health. If it was a match without Ava and Rebecca, all bets were off, and the next time they’d see me, I’d stagger through the front door and collapse under the weight of booze I had drunk to mask the confusion and pain I was experiencing inside. It made me a shit father and a shit husband then, the next day (and in the age of two-day hangovers) the next day after that. Something had to give. 

The following Thursday, I had a mental breakdown. I had to press pause on everything in my life, even football. With the help of my workplace, friends, and especially Rebecca and Ava, I slowly managed to get back to the person I wanted and needed to be. Going to watch Chelsea Women with them both was part of that gradual process. I managed to break my bond between alcohol and football, and the joy and positivity that exists more in the women's game was the perfect place to reconnect with the sport and, at the same time, get that serotonin flowing on a more regular basis.

Apart from losing to Arsenal in the Conti Cup, there’s been absolutely no looking back. A month after the Lyon game, me and Ava sat on the District Line for 42 stops to go and see Chelsea play at West Ham. Another school night, another memory made. We walked up Wembley Way together to watch her team in an FA Cup final, and we both ended up singing Blue is the Colour. Another team for me, if you’re counting, but one I share with my Daughter and wife. It really is the beautiful game. 

It’s not the way I thought things would go back when I found out I’d become a father, but not only has my daughter learnt the emotions and lessons football can give you, I’ve gone through a development of my own as a father and as a person.

Ava is off to secondary school now, another stage in what seems an ever-changing life. She is almost as tall as her mum, can even borrow her Stan Smiths and make-up, and always wants to go to Westfield now to buy even more clothes—those teenage years are getting closer every day. That said, she’s an absolute sucker for a football shirt. I hope whatever happens as my daughter becomes a woman, that a constant will be going to the match with Dad and Mum. Football is a place to take a pause from the ups and downs of daily life, a chance to go all in emotionally. Sharing all that with the people you love the most makes it even better.

"I hope I’m holding her hand leaving football stadiums for many years to come. "

It's taken a little longer than I thought, and the destination might be different, but it makes those match days all the more special.