So you have been at Arsenal your entire career.
You joined when you were nine years old,
and so that means that now you’ve been at the club for 18 years.
I want you to, like,
take us all the way back to the beginning and those early days
when you first joined as a kid.
What do you remember about your football and the club
way back when you were nine?
When I was 9, um,
the only game you could really watch on the television
was the FA Cup final every year,
and almost without fail, Arsenal was in that every single year.
So obviously I’m an Arsenal fan,
but in terms of women’s football and women’s football in England,
like, everyone,
everyone wanted to play for Arsenal,
um, and I was just the same.
So I think when I came,
it just sort of blew my mind.
Like, I remember my first tour,
we were so, yeah,
under tens. I was nine.
We went to Wales on, like, um,
end of season tour. We.
And there wasn’t an age group for us.
We actually ended up playing in our under twelves.
We played against them and in the same tournament as them.
We ended up winning, which is, like, amazing,
you know, first year Arsenal, whatever.
But our, like,
the people that looked after us,
we had Emma Burn, Jane Ludlow was our physio.
You know, like,
the first team were with us.
It was. I don’t Know,
it just.
I just thought this was everything that I thought it was gonna be.
You know, your youth team, like,
felt connected to the senior part of the club.
Yeah, it was just.
It was just everyone was involved in everything.
And I think the nature of the game, like,
you know, in terms of it not being fully professional.
So they all worked somehow within the club and.
And, yeah,
they came away with us and, like,
looked to shack around us,
did, like,
say, physio,
um, goalkeeper coach.
Like, they were just involved with us all the time.
So in terms of, like,
being a kid
and coming in and wanting to be part of everything that was Arsenal,
I felt like I got such a good experience at that early on.