The Football Interview: Lucy Bronze in her own words
Kelly Somers: What does football mean to you?
Lucy bronze: I think it has changed over years. When I was younger, it was everything for me. Maybe I put it a little too much. I haven’t seen this as a job, I will be honest, but now the meaning has changed for me. I have football in football and there is football I am a part of, this is a big picture. This means a lot for me.
KS: Your career has become parallel to the growth of women’s football. At first you played football, but now it looks like a little movement?
LB: I’m always so lucky that my career is in the same orbit as a female football in England. It was the time I lived in 2015. It was also the memory of England football and WSL started. The scene is growing in every tournament and growing in compatible with my football career. I was always very lucky to be on the same journey with women’s football.
KS: What is your first moment to play the game?
LB: I played with my big brother – so I started. When I was younger, people would have been: ‘Is his sister coming?’ And it would be like this: ‘Yes, and it will be in my team because it’s good.’ He had no problem with him. He would never allow me to win anything – it was because I won if I won. But I never had ‘girls play’ or ‘these girls’ football’ barrier because my family and brother were one of the best examples of this.
KS: Who has a great impact on football?
LB: The first was Ray Smith, my Alnwick town coach. When I was on the male team, he was a painter and decorater, then helped the team on weekends. You are just local volunteers in base football. And at the age of 12 FA, ‘Lucy can no longer play in the men’s team. Part of the rules’. Mom, ‘Well, he has no other place to go. We can’t take him anywhere. We can’t afford to take it anywhere ‘. Ray went to my mother and ‘please find a team of Lucy – one day will play for England’. 12 years old.
KS: What happened to a turning point in your career? I wonder if there is almost this conversation?
LB: A big turning point for me was going to America. When my mother searched for female football, the US came. College, MIA Hamm, World Cup, Olympic Champions – Everything about Women’s Football was the USA. That’s why it was like ‘okay, let’s go’. So he said to the whole family: ‘Let’s go to the states next summer. We will save, and if this is your dream, we will take you and see if it is a possibility. ‘This is like Be Beckham. At that time it was a warm issue to go to America. I went to the football camp and the Aries there played me and said: ‘He should come back when he gets old enough and there is a scholarship.’ That’s why I came back because England rejected me. Going to America and going to university, I only stayed for a year, but that was the biggest turning point.
KS: Are you talking to me about England rejecting you?
LB: I was in the youth age group, but I was never a star player or the chosen person. They would give scholarships and financing to help players, and I wasn’t chosen for anything. Loughborough had a full -time training and a programs where you could work. In my age group, you either went there or went to Arsenal’s Academy and I was the only one who wasn’t in two. I applied for Loughborough and they were like ‘not good enough’. My mother pulled them back to ask them that they had to heal them and never called back. Then my mother ‘Right, America, let’s go. Let’s do ‘.
