Poppie is 12 and joined our community when she trialled for our Girls’ Academy team. Though not offered a place in that squad, she began training in our Communities Football programme, focused on developing players’ football and transferable skills.
We’re celebrating Poppie’s story as a part of our ‘My game, my rules, my wins’ campaign alongside the 2025 UEFA Women’s Euro tournament – rewriting what it means to be a winner and show that more girls playing football means more winning, for everyone.
For Poppie, winning means being resilient – knowing that continued hard work and perseverance puts her in the best position to retrial next season. Read Poppie‘s story in her own words:
“I’ve been playing football for six or seven years. I started at school and then played for a club in Kentish Town. I started off as a goalie, saved a few goals and thought ‘this is not for me’. Playing up front and scoring lots of goals, I knew that was my position.
My Dad’s a massive Arsenal fan. I was the first to start watching women’s football in the family. Everyone liked men’s football but started watching the women and realised they were really good, especially at the last EUROs.
I remember Chloe Kelly scoring in the final. I like Alessia Russo, too, because I play the same position as her. She’s a really big role model and inspires me to keep playing.
I love playing football, because it’s fun, but it has been difficult. We live right next to Primrose Hill. It’s just a big field – there’s no goals, no equipment. With cages, there’s only goals and most of the cages are tarmac.
There were only two girls in my old team. We were promised a girls’ squad, but it turned out there weren’t enough girls to play. We had to play with the boys. At Bloomsbury, there’s so many more girls.
Some people don’t like sport. Of course, you can’t force people to play football if they don’t like it but sometimes you have to give stuff a go. You have got to exercise and ou have to stay healthy, and if you don’t try something out, you won’t know if you’re good at it. You could be professional if you’re really good.
I want to get to a professional level, but it’s fun even if I don’t get there. When I came to Bloomsbury, I didn’t get into the Academy, so I’ve been going for extra training. At my first session I was a bit nervous because I didn’t know anyone there, but now every week I’m so excited because I’ve made so many good friends.
At every session, Coach Rosanna makes us do a weather report. We say how we’re feeling, like we say we’re ‘sunny’ if we’re happy and it was a good day, or ‘rainy’ or ‘thunderstorms’ if it’s not been a good day.
I used to be really shy but football I think has really boosted my confidence. I’m going to retrial next season and try again to get into the Academy team.”
