Sport has always been a part of my life. I have been involved in it as long as I can remember. Picture a four-year old girl holding a teddy bear playing a football passing game with a twenty-something year old man; that’s how long.
Football is absolutely my favourite and the sport I play, I do play a bit of basketball though. Growing up, the sport that I played with passion was football. I played at school and at home with my cousins and some friends. I was usually the only girl; at first it was cool being the only girl amongst boys, but when I got to junior high school I began to feel lonely because at that stage the boys wouldn’t pass to me and that sucked. So I stopped playing with them.
It was also difficult to find girls my age who not only loved the game as much as I did but also knew how to play. The only playing I did was as part of my primary school team and we weren’t that good. On the basketball side however, we were the team to beat.
I had dreams of playing professional football and I mentioned it to my mum. I told her I wanted to join a local club and she said we would look into it. We never did. A typical response from a conservative mother hesitant of her daughter playing a male dominated game. Although I didn’t push further I still held on to those dreams.
When I got to high school I continued to play. I made it onto both football and basketball teams a mere month or so after being in the school (boarding school). Those three years I spent there were the best of my “playing career”. Although we didn’t win gold in football during our zonal competitions, I was able to proudly represent my school, be named the Best Sports Girl during one of our Speech and Prize Giving days and made captain during my final year. I also became the designated “sports director” for my house, my role being to recruit members and coordinate teams during our inter-houses competitions. Those were good times.
I still had dreams of becoming a professional football and I quite remember watching Nigeria’s Super Falcon Asisat Oshoala during an U-17 Women’s World Cup thinking, “I could be her, we’re the same age after all. My family and friends could’ve been watching me on TV”. I could’ve been at that very tournament proudly representing my country. If only I had pushed harder to join the local club when I was in junior high school. If only my mum had seen the fire in my eyes.
At the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology my continued participation in the sport – playing – was in question. At this point, gender roles and expectations had been firmly established on a young adult and, to be honest, I didn’t know many young women my age and in university who still played the game. After all, the next step in life after graduating was finding a job, getting married and having kids in that order if you were lucky. Who has time to be playing football? I wasn’t sure the university I would be attending even had a women’s team. For the boys, no doubt there would be.
For my first year at university I joined the basketball team, they were quite easy to find. I didn’t make the cut for the Ghana University Sports Association (GUSA) Games that year and I was devastated. I had never NOT MADE the cut before. I had always been among the best! I didn’t know how to bounce back from the disappointment so I quit the team with the excuse to myself that I didn’t “fit in” with the other girls. All through second year I took a break from sports.
Third year came around and I was battling with a serious case of withdrawal so I went in search of the football team and I found them. I was back home at last. I went to two GUSA games although I didn’t actually play in either (I don’t know what my coach was thinking). Sure, I was disappointed about that but I didn’t quit this time around. I can NEVER QUIT football. I had amazing experiences at the games and made equally amazing friends.
It is now almost two years since I graduated from university and I no longer play competitively (I don’t even remember the last time I played in a full match), the only playing I do is with a special wall in my house or with my little cousins whenever we meet. I am still involved in the beautiful game and actively pursuing a career in the sports industry; I have started a women’s football podcast with a friend and former teammate from university, I work for an incredible non-governmental organization that uses football as a tool to teach children about sanitation and hygiene issues as well as life skills (I’m somewhat of a coach). I recently started writing about women’s football for a sports website which I am excited about. I have also met and continue to meet (both in person and online) incredible and inspiring women and men in sport from whom I garner motivation to continue by career pursuit.
My mum is fully supportive, my dad not so much (he will get there I believe). It did take a while for my mum to accept the fact that this is the career path I want to take. In this part of the world, the industry isn’t as established as it is in other places hence not easy to break into, especially as a woman. It is understandable, then, for parents to be hesitant of their daughter venturing into it. I also have an aunt who’s a thousand percent behind me; I call her my manager. They’re awesome and I’m very grateful for their support and encouragement.
Football is my passion. I can talk about it for hours and I always want to know more about it. I guess it’s quite sad that as a young girl, there really aren’t any avenues to realize a dream of becoming a professional footballer, or professional player in any sport for that matter. It is constantly drummed into your brain that girls are not supposed to play sport. Of course there are “GIRLY” sports that we CAN play like handball, but not the manly ones like football or rugby. I think that’s just absurd.
It’s absurd to think that I will have been given more of a chance to realize my dream if I were a boy. The cultural barriers to playing sport and stereotypes are very difficult to overcome let alone the lack of resources and investment in the game at all levels; people think that your body will be too “hard” (muscular), you won’t develop breasts, you have to be a tomboy, you’ll look like a man you might be a lesbian, you won’t be able to give birth. To them, I say, the twenty-first century is waiting for you to cross over into it, don’t take too long it won’t wait forever and you WILL be left behind.
Women’s football and indeed women’s sport is on the rise and there’s no holding it back. Now, young girls and women have sports role models who look just like them and earning a decent income from careers in the game they love, whether by playing, coaching or in other roles.
IT’S A GREAT TIME TO BE A WOMAN IN SPORT.