Ellen White on the growth of women’s football and women in football

Lionesses legend Ellen White recently came to UCFB and spoke about how great it was to see so many young female students following their dream to have a career in sport.

Ellen, who is England women’s all-time top goalscorer, visited UCFB Manchester and offered advice and guidance to the students wanting that role in the football and sports industry.

During her talk, she spoke about how she sees not only women’s sports, but equality across all sports, growing in the coming years, and female UCFB students being a big part of that on and off the pitch.

“I feel like having female role models,” she said, “being able to see it and believe it and being like, ‘Oh, I can do that. I can be a female working in sport. I can have that role. I can be inspiring. I can work alongside men as well.’

“It’s not just a male-dominated role, there is space for women, and it’s an important space to obviously have women involved as well.

“So having that equality and those opportunities has been amazing to see. And it’s great to hear more uptake of females within those degrees as well.”

Ellen then offered advice for young women wanting a career in sport.

She added: “I feel like in any job, it’s going to be roller coasters. There’s going to be ups and downs. And I feel like might not quite work out with you one way.

“There’s another direction. There’s another way. Maybe there’s a bump in the road, but just keep going.

“It’s frustrating that, we do have to bang on those doors and smash those ceilings. But I feel like more women doing that, and seeing more women that are in top roles or are thriving in women’s sport, I think it’s so inspiring.

“And also having a lot of male allies as well, men supporting women as well and being like, ‘No, we need the collective to help obviously grow our sport grow our industry.’ I think it’s really important.

“But I’d say just absolutely go for it. You might be outside your comfort zone, but you’re needed, you’re inspiring, you bring something different: hard work, desire and love for what you’re doing.

“Hopefully, you know, you could be up there, you know, inspiring more women in the future.”

UCFB students gain access to many guest speakers from across football and sport thanks to our dedicated Employability and Career Planning Team. Learn more about them and the experiences and opportunities they offer our students.

You can also view a prospectus and find out about our courses, campuses and everything about student life at UCFB.