A great football team is the right balance and the right mixture of players. Good leaders, good communicators and good technicians. You need people that are strategically astute. People need passion, desire and most importantly, a willingness to keep learning.
I think part of being a good coach is knowing how to extract the best from different people.
When I played football was somewhat taboo for a girl. Today it's not as much of a problem. Not all girls want to play football but it's not a case of 'Oh my god she plays football, that's a bit odd.' It's a lot more accepted now.
If you want to make it as a sportsperson - Become knowledgeable in the sport you want to participate in. Think about the sport and what it can offer in its entirety. You shouldn't want to become a professional sportsperson because of the money. There's a lot more to gain from being involved in sport. Work hard to get what you want. If it's your ambition, go for it. You don't have to be the best in the world to make it as an elite athlete. You need to be a grafter and be prepared to sacrifice.
There are lots of positives to come out of playing all sports, not just football. Team games can offer you different life skills than an individual sport can. Football improves your time management - you have to be places on time and disciplined in terms of training.
I think you can learn lots of skills playing football. Team building is one. You also learn how to solve problems within your team. Sometimes you find yourself playing with players that you don't necessarily like, but you have to put your differences aside for the good of the team. It gives you skills that you may not appreciate at the time.
I think any sport needs to be accessible, affordable and practiced within the confines of a safe environment. Parents who have young children want to be able to leave their child somewhere which has good facilities and where they're going to be looked after.
I think we need to be a bit more proactive. Let's not just talk about availability of sports, let's make the facilities more accessible to kids and make them want to come along.
In order to play some sports there's quite a big cost implication, whereas football is relatively cheap. All you need is a ball and a couple of jumpers to practise.
Football was just the playing I enjoyed at first, but the longer you're playing the more it becomes a social event. You meet new people and make new friends. I still know some of the people I played with when I was 11-years-old, which is nice.
In football I enjoyed competing and wanted to be the best. That was also part of it. There were quite a few factors. I loved the game, it was a great way to socialize and I liked playing against girls because it meant competing on a level playing field.
