While most final-year students prepare for exams and dissertations, UCFB’s Georgia Stevens prepares to play professionally with Coventry United – however she’s still studying for her degree!
Having just signed a contract with the Women’s Championship club, the BA (Hons) Multimedia Sports Journalism student told us how she juggles these impressive commitments.
Even England, Liverpool and Everton’s youth squads do not prepare you for the world of professional football, Georgia told us. The 20-year-old striker admits the elite game is far more gruelling, and rewarding, than she ever could have anticipated, following a short stint at a top flight Icelandic side last year.
The scouser was scouted for THOR/KA following her appearance on BT Sport's Ultimate Goal, a new reality series created in search of Europe's emerging stars in women's football.
Georgia said: “I knew it was a good standard but I was actually shocked at how good it was. It took me to a whole new level as a player because I was training every day. I was living with my teammates as well; it was just football non-stop which is what I’ve dreamed of!”
But it’s English football, in particular, that’s dazzled the dreams of the former Huddersfield star. After returning from Iceland due to coronavirus, Georgia was in search of a temporary place to play, when she just so happened to stumble across the start of her professional career in England.
She said: “I spoke to my agent to see if I could get to a club just to train at. My plan was just to do that, to train up until January and see where it took me. But pretty much as soon as the first session ended, there was a contract offer on the table.”
Coventry, who currently sit ninth in the Championship, are striving to continue their upward march with the new centre-forward, having been promoted the season before last. Yet while this will undoubtedly be Georgia’s toughest test to date in football, her education has, and always will, come first.
She said: “That’s why I’m so busy all of the time, because I’ve got that mentality. All of the women I looked up to had two jobs, they were a footballer and a teacher or a footballer and a lawyer.”
Georgia added: “I knew I needed an education, because as much as I wanted to live off football it wasn’t a possibility for me.”
But she applauds how quickly this is changing. The next generation of female footballers have much more flexibility in their career, both on the pitch and behind the scenes.
She said: “I see these young girls coming through who want to have a career in football and they don’t think about the ‘what ifs’ in the same way as the men. I think that’s just massive for women all over the country.”
