Saturday 23rd March, 2024 at 5:59pm
Dear 12-year-old Amy,
You are about to go through a daunting period of your life with starting high school and heading into your teenage years. You’re different from other girls in your class, you don’t wear makeup, you don’t watch the same tv shows and overall you don’t have much in common with them. There will be times when you will be picked on, you will feel alone and left out. You will go through your teenage years not drinking or going to parties because you refuse to give into what is classed as “the norm” for your age, it will get to you at times but it will pay off for you. You will have a successful youth career by winning league titles, league cup’s and a Scottish Cup!
You will go onto captain your team at both U15’s & U17’S that you will take great pride in doing so. So when you’re feeling the pressure of society, please stay strong, stay true to yourself and never let anyone take away your spark and passion you have for football.
When times get hard just remember all the happy memories you have with a ball at your feet. When you were in the back garden practising to use both feet for hours on end, when you played “cuppy” at the park with all the boys and feeling like you’re finally part of something or every weekend you spent at Hamilton Palace Sports ground kicking the ball about with your grandpa.
Your grandpa – He helped teach you the basics of the game, he helped develop your technical ability (which will turn out to be one of your strengths in your game) and he will be the reason behind your drive and the love you will always have for the game. Watching Match of the day on a Saturday night with your grandparents will be a memory you will cherish for the rest of your life. Your gran singing the theme song changing the words to “she’s football crazy, she’s football daft” while pointing to you from across the room. Football will be such a big part of your life, not only for playing the game but the bonding time you were lucky enough to have with your loved ones. Use this as a driving force for wanting to continue to better yourself, you will struggle with confidence throughout your career, I wish I could help you with this part but you’re now 30 and are still fighting this battle…. So good luck with that lol.
Football will save your life Amy, it will keep you safe, it’s your comfort blanket throughout your whole life. You will miss out on family events, friends’ birthdays and make sacrifices that they might not understand but you won’t regret it. Playing football is for a short period of your life, you need to make the most of every moment because the reality is you never know when your last minute on the pitch will be.
Everytime you step onto that pitch, no matter what is going on in your life or around you, it will all disappear. For 90 minutes you will be in your happy place, thinking of nothing other than what your next pass will be. You will struggle with your mental health throughout your career, there will be one moment in particular when you almost quit and walk away from the game altogether. Thankfully you will have a great, understanding manager and support network around you and they will help you past this stage. The older you get, the more you will enjoy playing the game, you will experience some of the best days of your life at the latter stage of your career so don’t ever give up, you are extremely stubborn and you will refuse to let this stop you playing.
Amy, you will be so proud that you continued to play football despite feeling “different” or not feeling like a normal teenager throughout the years. Your love for the beautiful game, dedication and resilience is what has led you here today. You will always play for the love of the game and will help pave the way for the future generation and young stars of Scottish women’s football.
On Sunday 24th of March you will play in the biggest game of your senior career, an opportunity that doesn’t come around often. Your parents and loved ones will be there cheering you on as proud as ever watching you doing the thing that makes you the happiest. They will understand that all your decisions and sacrifices have all come down to this moment, everything you have worked so hard for is paying off. And most importantly to all the younger girls who were once you, they will be watching on hoping that one day they can follow in your footsteps. So go out onto that pitch with a smile on your face, embrace every second that you are lucky enough to be experiencing because cup finals don’t come around often (especially at the age you are hen).
ENJOY IT!!
Bulls x
