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?

For as long as I can remember I have been told that I can achieve anything I set my mind to. If I work hard enough and if I am resilient enough, then I will succeed. Yet even though I was told to aim high and dream big, at the same time I have been drip fed information about the gross gender imbalances that thrive in today’s world and would make my journey to success much more difficult.
 
I remember the first time I heard about the glass ceiling. It was a school assembly, I was sixteen years old and our head teacher spoke of an invisible barrier that the girls in that room would face when we entered the workplace – about the uphill battle to get promotions and pay rises. 
 
He must have finished it with words of inspiration. He must have told us that the world was changing and we shouldn’t let barriers hold us back, but I can’t remember that bit. What I do remember is a cold fury spreading across my body. There was no way I was going to let a glass ceiling park itself over my head. I would prove to the world that I could carry out tasks better than anybody else.

Yet it planted a seed all the same. Despite my determination not to be shoved to the side-lines a little pocket of doubt started to grow. What if, despite my best efforts, I wasn’t even given an opportunity to demonstrate my abilities? What if I got stuck in a net and I couldn’t do anything about it.
 
When I look back, I can’t help but wonder how many girls in that room heard the same messages I did and gave up. How many of them thought that the path ahead would be too difficult, too demanding and settled for less because that’s just the way it was?
 
I didn’t. The positive messages that other people in my life kept feeding me were stronger and these were the messages that I chose to believe. I think that we are all worthy and capable of achieving great things, and even when barriers, setbacks and challenges are thrown in our path we need to remember that these ceilings are made of glass, not steel. Keep hammering away and it will crack and break. Collaborate, connect and work together and it will shatter.
 
The movement for women’s equality has come an astounding distance when you look back at the turn of the last century. Progress has been slow, but the changes implemented have been monumental. Using a sporting analogy, in terms of women’s equality, I feel we are currently at medal potential. Many of the big, radical overhauls have been made, but to get to the next level – to achieve true equality for everybody – we need to start working on changing the fundamental perceptions of women and men. 
 
And we have a very long road ahead of us.
 
That’s why International Women’s Day is so important. It’s recognition of the distance we have come and a call to action to propel us further ahead. We all have a responsibility to ensure that everybody’s voice gets heard and to challenge the perceptions we hold about all genders. The beautiful thing about the human race is the endless spectrum of differences that it has to offer. Inclusion and equality isn’t just the right thing to do, but it’s a critical performance driver. Difference leads to creativity, innovation and better problem solving abilities.
 
For me, International Women’s Day is about celebrating success and initiating conversations about how we can start redefining perspectives and break through barriers that still exist. And it’s about bringing everybody together. The theme this year is #balanceforbetter, which I am super excited about. The future is not female, and it is not male. The future is people and we achieve more together. Men and women should be allies - collaborators not competitors, who, by working together, can work change gender expectations in a way that helps everybody.