Are there any particular fan interactions that stick out to you?
There was actually a really cute one recently where a young girl had saved her pocket money and come into my coffee shop [Boxx2Boxx Coffee in Manchester] and bought me a journal because she knew that I love to write poetry. And I thought that was just so lovely. She had a hot chocolate, I had a coffee, and we chatted. To think of her saving her pocket money to give me a gift, I just thought it was lovely. And I love writing poetry, so maybe I’ll write a poem about that, actually.
Is a poetry collection by Jill Scott on the cards?
Hopefully. I’ve got a real passion for it, and I’ve got about 50 poems now. Football is such an intense sport and you always get told to bit tough and have a smile on your face. And obviously, we all have feelings like human beings, so I always find it easier to write down how I’m feeling rather than speak about it. Maybe it’s about helping the next generation because I get a lot of young girls, who say to me, ‘Oh, this is happening at the minute,’ and you’ve gone through the same thing as well. So hopefully, through the poems, you can show them that they’re not alone.
Are there any particular things that young girls come up to and say they’re going through?
Maybe not so much now, which is a great thing, but definitely a few years ago, probably getting bullied because they wanted to play football. And I went through that from a young age.
And what would you say to them?
I would say follow your dreams, follow your passion. And I’ve had stories where I’ve gone into a pub all these years later and there’s probably someone there who used to say some nasty words to us when I was little, and they’ll just go, ‘Can I you a drink?’ And I’m like, yeah, you can actually. And I don’t say anything, but I think to myself, ‘I showed you.’ I just tell them that if they’ve got a passion, a dream, don’t let anybody stand in your way.
For more from Glamour UK’s Lucy Morgan, follow her on Instagram @lucyalexxandra.