It Takes Balls
For Jasmine Guinness, the main reason to play football is to go to the pub afterwards. Now that she has 18-month-old Elwood, she doesn't have many opportunities to get together with her friends in the local. Football provides the perfect excuse. Her great friend, Zita Lloyd, agrees. Zita has set up and captains a women's football team, which plays in West London. "We get to watch all the handsome boys who play at the same time as us under the Westway. Then we all go to the pub."
Zita is my cousin and I play for her team. So does Lucy Wood, whose boyfriend Sid is one of our coaches (play plays in the West London Premier League). He says we are easily as creative and as talented as men… just not as aggressive. Mind you, you wouldn't know it to watch Rachael Stirling play. She is our most elegant player, gliding across the pitch with the grace of a dancer, but she takes no nonsense, charging the opposition at any opportunity.
We're different from men, naturally. Not many male footballers are glamorous blonde barristers like our own Kaja Reiff-Musgrove. "It's a laugh hanging out with the girls and it's good to get the competitive spirit going," she says. She's also become noticeably fitter: "My chest really hurt at the beginning, and I felt sick after five minutes. Now I feel sick after half an hour."
Fitness was the spur for me, too. Like thousands of… [cut off]
