After helping to inspire England to glory at Euro 2022, Jill Scott has become one of the most recognisable faces in football media.
A regular on the punditry couch, as well as podcast The Overlap, the Sunderland native is a woman in demand these days. Though she can remember a time when things felt very different.
"I remember playing for Everton, a top club, and we’d only get a few hundred fans in," recalls the 37-year-old. "Now we’re seeing clubs’ main stadiums being used for women’s games and they're totally sold out. Fifty-thousand people in the crowd."
Scott is credited – alongside the former Lionesses team-mates with whom she lifted that European Championship title at Wembley – as a major reason for the recent boom in attention surrounding women's football. She's hoping this is just the beginning.
"The support is there," she says. "If you keep women’s football in smaller grounds, it can never grow, so it’s been so refreshing. I went from having almost nobody coming to games to finishing my career in a packed Wembley. It went full circle. It was such a brilliant way to bow out.
"I think for me when I look into the crowd at women's games, it just feels more like a family event. There never seems to be any trouble and stuff like that. And it’s been great to see more guys coming to games and some even telling me that they’re going to watch men’s football on a Saturday and then taking their daughters to women’s matches on a Sunday. So just really nice stories."
Scott and her team-mates won Euro 2022 in front of 87,000 fans at Wembley. Her final game as a professional footballer represented the greatest not only in achievement but also in terms of support.
"That Euros final showed hardcore fans at their best," she tells FFT. "Not just walking onto the pitch but on the way into the ground too. There were people lining the streets and people wearing shirts with players like Beth Mead on the back. We were pointing people out to one another on the way in. We turned up at the ground so inspired to do it for them."
Now, as a fan herself, watching England has become even more agonising than it was when she was actually playing for her country.
"I think I’m more tired watching England than I was when I was playing," she grins. "When you’re playing, you focus on your game but when I’m watching as a fan I am virtually kicking every single ball with the girls. I have an emotional connection with those players as I know them and they’re like family. If someone goes down injured, I am so desperate for them to get back up."
Despite the emotion that goes with being a fan instead of a player, Scott has embraced her inner football fan again. She particularly enjoys watching a certain Lioness, her former team-mate for club and country, Keira Walsh.
"Keira's the sort of player hardcore fans love," says Scott. "I witnessed her come into the Man City team as a 16-year old, and she would do things in training that made everyone applaud. Lauren Hemp as well. She has so much pace, which I never did, and so I’m always in awe just watching her breeze past players."
Scott was speaking to FourFourTwo as part of Heineken's latest football campaign, 'Cheers to all hardcore fans', which aims to tackle negative perceptions of what being a hardcore football fan means.
"What I really like about Heineken is they try to tackle certain issues of the game," she says. "So the most recent one is all about real hardcore fans, and I just love the concept of this because whenever you say hardcore fan, people often conjure up this image of tattooed men swearing in the stands. But actually a hardcore fan could be anybody that is passionate about the game. So you could have fans who want to fill their sticker album or get an autograph or a picture with their favourite player. That can be a hardcore fan, too."
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