It's great to see all the excitement around the Lionesses competing at the Euros. I love a good role model and that team is packed with them. They've done a fantastic job of raising awareness of women's football and creating opportunities for young girls to get involved with the sport.

​Whilst it's important to talk about successes, it's also important to discuss the challenges. Things are improving slowly, but we still have many gaps, barriers, and challenges to tackle.

I want to share my experiences of football (this was before I became disabled) and how a negative incident can have an impact on participation rates. I've written about it in my latest book, Shoot for the Stars:

I signed up for football practice in my first week at secondary school. The empty changing room echoed hollowly as I pulled on my PE kit, hoping the other girls were running late. Nobody else turned up and I walked outside, alone. 
 
It turned out that football was very popular, just not with the girls. Over thirty boys crowded around the PE block. “Time for the warm-up. Get into pairs and we’ll jog around the pitch,” barked the PE teacher.
 
The boys moved away from me quickly. “I don’t want to be stuck with the girl,” one guy hissed. I pretended I hadn’t heard and turned towards another boy. “I’m with him,” he said, jabbing his finger towards the partner he’d miraculously found.
 
This carried on until there were only two of us left and the PE teacher stepped in, ushering us together much to the boy’s dismay. When it was time for the game, things didn’t get better. Nobody wanted me on their team. Nobody passed the ball to me. I trotted up and down the pitch, waving my arms and yelling to my teammates as I heard them say: 
 
“Girls can’t play football.” 
 
“She shouldn’t be here.”
 
“I can’t believe she thinks she’s one of us.”
 
I never went back. I didn’t love the sport enough to put up with that.
 
It’s a horrible feeling to find yourself in a place where you aren’t accepted or celebrated for all the brilliant things you can give. I wish I had been stronger. I wish I’d shrugged off the comments and catcalls and stood my ground. But it’s easy to look back and wish you’d done things differently. 

Whilst we are seeing improvement, barriers still exist. Many girls want to play football, and other sports, but are unable to access it or feel like they don't belong if they give it a chance. One negative experience can be powerful enough to stop them showing up again.

I think that sharing some of these stories is helpful because it makes us aware that these barriers exist. And once we are aware of them, we can do something about it.

So let's start the conversation! Have you ever experienced anything like this? Or maybe seen it, heard it, or have a brilliant success story?

​Have you ever had your life turned upside down? Things are going great, then something gets flung your way that you never expected?
 
Yep, that happened to me… 
 
I had this awesome sports career that just got better and better. It was a bit of a whirlwind really. I started archery on my fifteenth birthday, made the Great Britain team three years later and jumped straight in as World Number 1. Year on year I outdid myself. World records, world titles, world firsts. I pushed the boundaries of my potential and redefined what I thought I was capable of.

Whenever I am asked about the important factors that lead to success in sport it can unreservedly be summed up in one word: passion. 
 
If you love what you do then you’re going to want to put in however much time and effort it takes to achieve scary, big goals. Passion is the thing that inspires you to keep striving for better. It ensures you keep learning and evolving, and think up creative strategies to drive performance. It’s your motivation to find a way around the obstacles that inevitably crop up and stops you from walking away when things get impossibly tough.
 
And I was passionate about my sport. I poured my heart and soul into it. Archery had changed my life in such a profound way, empowering me to live life on my terms when I became disabled. This was my purpose, my reason for getting up in the morning. And I was good at it.
 
But then something happened that I couldn’t prepare for. The International Paralympic Committee changed the rules around classification. Whilst I’d always passed this with flying colours, under the new rules it was decided that my disability did not affect my ability enough. And that was it. I was no longer allowed to compete as a Paralympian. Overnight I lost everything. 
 
My sport. My purpose. My way of life. My identity.
 
My life came crashing down and I quickly moved from shock to disbelief. The classifiers saw what I wanted the outside world to see and didn’t understand just how limiting my condition was, so I contested it. I appealed and protested, and I got nowhere. Failing again was almost worse than the first time. I felt angry, frustrated and alone. 
 
Lost. 
 
But life moves forward whether you want it to or not. My only option was to adapt to the situation. I could do nothing about the classification decision, but I could control my response to it. Instead of focusing on all the things I had lost, I focused on what I had left. I needed to find a new purpose, one that I was just as passionate about as my sport. 
 
And that’s exactly what I did. I reinvented myself, set up a speaking, training and coaching business – and I absolutely LOVE what I do now.
 
Life doesn’t always go to plan, but we are all capable of breaking through barriers. When you’re thrown a curveball here are three things that you can do: 
 

When stuff goes wrong it’s usually accompanied by an emotional response, making us feel pretty rubbish about ourselves and the situation. Emotions are healthy and we don’t want to switch them off, but we don’t want them to interfere in any decision-making processes either. When we’re thinking emotionally, we aren’t always able to see things with clarity. Putting things into perspective allows us to respond better. Acknowledging your emotions and practicing self-compassion is important, then take some time to reflect on the situation and the reality of it. 
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