Phoebe Brooks, a second year student at the University of Gloucestershire, has been involved in the women’s football team since she arrived as a fresher.
The 21-year-old believes that being a part of the UoGWF team has helped her grow and improve her mental health.
“Being involved in the football team has definitely helped me grow mentally, playing football has always been so crucial for my mental health as it’s a break from anything you’re stressing about. It also helps my confidence as getting used to meeting new people and going to the socials is invaluable at uni.”
Mental health is a big issue that one in four people will experience throughout their lifetime.
Football can help in people’s recovery, help to manage symptoms and can radically improve the quality of people’s lives. Whether it’s in mainstream, community football clubs or in specialised sport and mental health projects, football can deliver massive benefits.
There are three main ways that football can help:
- Helping physical health
- Delivering social inclusion
- Improving people’s mental health
Being a first year student can be a nerve-racking experience for the majority of teenagers and struggling to find friends is common among many.
Sports societies help students meet other students that share the same interests as you and Brooks believes it’s the best way to meet new people.
“I think joining any society as a first year is a really good way to start meeting new people who have the same interests as you. Sports societies are especially good because playing in a team can help with making friends massively. It’s also just good to keep up with a sport if you enjoy playing it, exercise is so important and especially as a new university student it gets you out of the house and is something to help distract you from the stress of assignments.”
Varsity is something every university student looks forward to at the end of the year as it brings everyone together and the support pushes the sportsmen and sportswomen to perform for not just the team, but for the whole university.
“Yeah varsity is always fun, as a team it’s exciting because it’s something to focus on working towards but is also a good feeling to be a part of something that the whole uni gets behind. Because it’s across the whole uni it also means you’re playing for everyone and not just for football, it brings all the teams together to beat Worcester so there’s so much support and everyone enjoys it so it’s great that I get to be part of it as part of football.”
There’s a very controversial opinion going around social media at the moment involving former Manchester City, Newcastle United & QPR footballer Joey Barton.
Barton commented “women shouldn’t be talking with any kind of authority in the men’s game” on his twitter page.
Brooks reacted to Barton’s recent comments about female pundits and women’s footballing ability and said:
“I think it’s really disappointing that in this day and age with women’s football finally starting to get the recognition it deserves that there are still people like Joey Barton trying to tear it down.
He says that he doesn’t think women are qualified to comment on the men’s game because they are completely different games but I’d be intrigued to know if he’d have an issue with male pundits commenting on the women’s game.
Alex Scott, a woman, who has made 140 appearances for England, grew up playing football with her brother and she was scouted for Arsenal whilst playing football with boys. She has also been commentating on both women’s and men’s football for years so even IF, hypothetically, the men’s and women’s games were completely different as Joey Barton claims Alex Scott and other similar female pundits would still know what they are talking about when it comes to the men’s game in great detail and to suggest otherwise is a complete disrespect to their intelligence.
Not to mention the fact that anyone can learn about football, you don’t have to play it to make a great pundit, Laura Woods proves that by being a two time winner of sports presenter of the year.”
Laura Woods, Kate Abdo and Alex Scott are amongst the best pundits in the world alongside all the legendary male pundits.
As Brooks said, Laura Woods has won the sports presenter of the year award twice in 2021 and 2023. This year beating the likes of colleague Mark Pougatch, who fronts men’s football coverage on ITV, to the award.
“I think his outdated comments are a childish attempt to mask the fact that he is intimidated by these strong, successful women working in this industry.
In a tweet in response to Alex Scott defending female pundits, he said that she was ‘a really bad player compared to even a Sunday league player’.
Not only is this incredibly rude and degrading but it is also untrue; Scott is an Arsenal and England legend has 139 more England appearances than the singular one Barton managed to get in 2007.
Similarly, Kate Abdo is one of the most recognised and praised pundits at the moment. She is an incredibly intelligent woman who is fluent in four languages and her career is only going from strength to strength, unlike Joey Barton who has just recently been sacked from his job as manager of Bristol Rovers.
I think he’s saying these things out of ingrained misogyny and anger at seeing women succeed at something he thinks is for men only and I would echo the words that Alex Scott put out in response to Barton; ‘football is a better place with us ALL in it’.”
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