As a former Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper and now solicitor, journalist and podcaster, Chloe Morgan is playing an important role in inspiring females to became leaders in football.
So she jumped at the chance to host the latest Premier League Changemakers celebration event, held at Manchester's National Football Museum, which enabled young people from across England and Wales to come together to discuss equity, equality and allyship in the game.
This is Chloe's story.
When I was asked to be a part of this amazing event, that it's at the National Football Museum, surrounded by incredible young people from across the industry, who are going to be speaking with each other, engaging in amazing workshops, and I'll have the chance to host in front of the future leaders in football, I didn't hesitate.
Looking out at the room, I was in awe. When you see the cultures, the backgrounds, the religions, the diversity in the room, it's amazing. And then you've got fantastic female role models who are supporting these young women in their journeys.
I've also seen so many men in this room, engaging meaningfully with some of the discussions and having an in-depth understanding of some of the challenges and barriers that these young people and young women specifically are going through.
When are you going to get an opportunity to have people from clubs from across the country talking about their experiences of being in school and playing football? The collaboration across the entire day has been unreal.
It's been incredible to feel so inspired by these young people. When you're face to face with girls who have these massive ambitions, playing football, sports administration, coaches, nutritionists, or taking roles in the boardroom, it's such a different landscape than the sort of things we were talking about girls doing 20 years ago.
When I first got involved with Spurs, it was completely different. We were in tier three of the women's game, we were training once or twice a week, having to use our own kits which were men's and sometimes we were playing on waterlogged pitches. We were lucky if we got 20/30 people down to a game.
By the time I retired, Tottenham Hotspur Women were in the Women's Super League and we playing at places like Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, Stamford Bridge and the Millennium Stadium in front of 30,000 people. The transition was huge.
Handing over my shirt was emotional. I never thought in a million years that I'd be giving it to the National Football Museum. To have girls who are going to do things in the future signing my shirt is unbelievable. It will sink in later on.
I retired 18 months ago and there's definitely part of me that feels I just missed out on when it exploded! But it was also an exciting time because there was so much happening off the pitch.
There were punditry and marketing opportunities, people started to talk about the women's game more. So while I wasn't playing, I was still able to advocate for the game, share my voice with people around the industry and be a part of it in a different way, such as this Premier League Changemakers event.
The event will build confidence in the girls. By the end of the day they were laughing and speaking to each other from across the tables. For them to feel that they are not alone is a massive thing. It hopefully builds that belief that they will go on and do something amazing. They might not know what that is yet but that doesn't matter.
I look at someone like Leah Williamson. She's a qualified accountant, she is the Lionesses captain, she plays for Arsenal and she's played piano with the BBC Concert Orchestra. You don't have to pigeonhole yourself and think that only football is your identity.
Premier League Changemakers puts these girls in a position where they could come out of their comfort zone, speak to others... networking can sound like a scary word but they were doing it automatically. They were making friends and having that positive experience around making connections.
Programmes like this are so important. When you're 14 or 15 years old and you are being heard, being asked for your opinion, being asked to engage in a drama workshop, being involved in signing a shirt that's going to be in the National Football Museum, being told that your voices matter, that your experiences matter, that's absolutely huge. It's empowerment.
