With the England women’s senior team retaining their crown at this summer’s UEFA Women’s EURO 2025, the latest episode of Football & Me focused on women’s football and just how far the game has come.
Former Lioness Rachel Yankey, co-founder of AFTA Studios, Jade Stanger, CEO of Women in Football, Yvonne Harrison, and Yasmin Hussain, a grassroots coach at Frenford & MSA WFC, joined hosts Alistair Patrick-Heselton and Fadumo Olow from St. George’s Park.
The group began by discussing their route into the sport and the hurdles they had to overcome in the process.
“My start was playing football down the local park with my older and then when two friends across the road wanted to join a team, I tagged along,” recalled Yankey.
“It was a boys’ team – I pretended to be a boy – but I think that probably shows where the women’s game was at, at that point. It just didn’t have the visibility that it has today.
“As a young kid, growing up, wanting to play football and loving and enjoying the sport, I thought that I was the only girl in the world that played football.”
“For me, football is a big part of my life growing up,” explained Hussain. “Unfortunately, at the age of 13, I had to give it up. There was no female club or female coach and that was a barrier to me.
“Twenty years later, I decided that I needed to start my coaching journey and be the change that was needed.
“I struggled to just get five girls and I questioned whether there’s a demand for it – it was still seen as a boys’ sport – and people in the community looked at me thinking. ‘what am I doing?’
“Now, I’ve been coaching for eight years and I have an average of 100 girls a weeks. It’s been a massive shift in the community and change of mindsets.”
And there are a number of different routes into the sport, whether that be through roles on or off the pitch, as the group highlighted, including Stanger who founded AFTA Studios which celebrates women’s football through art.
“I had a similar journey, in terms of I stopped playing around 13,” said Stanger. “My secondary school was very much pushing for a girls’ team. I moved schools and that community wasn’t there for me.
“Years later, I went into the performing arts world – a completely different world – so I was very much all about storytelling and performing.
History, written again by the #Lionesses. 🏴🏆 pic.twitter.com/lYIoVX1SG4
— Lionesses (@Lionesses) July 27, 2025
“We really got into the women’s game again and we love telling the stories of it’s not just what happens on the pitch, it’s what happens on the pitch.”
And the latest episode in the series highlighted just how far the sport has come in terms of accessibility.
“I feel proud of where it’s got to,” added Harrison. “I think for people of our generation, the opportunities weren’t there.
“I think now, for young girls, there’s so many more opportunities to participate in sport. Sport changes live – it has the power to do such amazing things.
“For me, the fact that young girls can now aspire to have a career as a professional football is very, very exciting but equally, as coaches, as officials, working right across the game in administration which is obviously what we’re all about at Women in Football.”
The full episode is available to watch now below.
