Blog: Careers
Sofia* (not real name)
I volunteered with the Council’s Trading Standards team after a Council representative came into my school explaining some of the volunteering opportunities available to us. My role was acting as a mystery shopper: in short, going into local shops and attempting to purchase alcohol and other age-restricted products to test if the shops are asking for I.D.
The team was so friendly and diverse, and made me feel really comfortable working alongside them. I was given money to go and attempt to purchase the age-restricted items – if I was successful in doing so then the team would follow up with the shop to let them know that they had failed the check.
The experience was really rewarding – I felt like I was making a difference in the community. I’d recommend this experience to other young people who are interested take part in volunteering with the Council. I will start studying for my A-levels in September and I hope to go to university after that. I think that this will look great on my C.V, as well as just being a really interesting experience.
Zhane
I went to The Green school in Isleworth. And at the age of 13, I met Shaun Preddie from Brentford’s Community Sports Trust. They came into our school and asked if girls wanted to come to an after-school programme. So, between Lampton, my school and Gumley - they just invited everyone from the area to come. It was based at Lampton, after school for about 2 hours.
And it was nice for me because up until that point, I'd never played football because going to an all-girls school, you don't really get many girls that are interested, especially back then, not as many girls were taking part and playing it.
For me, I felt like I was actually quite good and I always wanted to play against people that maybe were better than me just to perfect myself. So that gave me the opportunity to do that. Then he (Shaun) also introduced me to take part in the World Youth Games at Crystal Palace Sports Centre at age 15.
Back then it was a really big thing, and I'd never left west London to play football. For me, that was an amazing experience – an eye opener - because you get not just football, but basketball, athletics, all in one day, everyone from every side of London playing sports and for me that was a big push towards seeing what sports could really do for you as a career path.
At school, I was engaged, but I wasn't the most academic, so I would say that I gravitated towards sports or more active things because that was what I was good at, and for me to go into the youth games and understand that while there is a career pathway in sports, you can do many things. It's not just ‘I play football for my team at school’ and after that you're done. It's like you could actually grow with it and get to be put into clubs and teams - I was really excited to do that.
I continued playing with Shaun on a voluntary basis and he used to run ‘Kicks’ at Feltham on the 4G pitch.
And that was nice because there I got to play with just men. I was the only girl amongst how many boys and that's where I feel like I perfected my football skills.
Boys are always going to play different from girls, but it's about building that confidence to break barriers, to be able to say, ‘hey, I can get on the pitch with you?’, and ‘hey, I can play with you? - I'm just as good, so like, involve me’.
Shaun always made me feel included no matter what I did, which was nice of him. He was the perfect mentor.
I used to look forward to it once a week on a Wednesday and they used to do it on a Friday as well, and that was my favourite - two or three hours of just being outside, getting to play proper football, keeping it going and everyone's energy was always bright and always encouraging, which was nice and I growing up I didn't always see that when it came to playing football.
Then, women's football wasn't as established as it is now. It was not a thing. I had a colleague, Chelsea. She used to work for the Education Department at Brentford, but now she's gone on to manage the women's football development on the other side of Gunnersbury Park. That’s progress. I said, ‘Chelsea, I've got this girl. I think she's really good’. Because for me, that's something that never happened when I was young because it wasn't that big. There weren't many girls playing, now there’s talent everywhere. And I always say to them, like, take full advantage of what you have now because women's football was never as big.
You're seeing bigger games. Brentford’s Stadium is hosting bigger games, and it's always going to be good to push and break that barrier between men's football and women's football.
Shaun pushed me to get a Level One in football coaching when I was 16. I'm working to get my Level 2 right now. So because my department is more education based, I had conversations about maybe doing a bit of coaching on the side and that was something that I went to university and studied - at Saint Mary's. I had the space to develop, and I love it, keeping it all local as well. And I had a conversation with them the other day about getting a Level 2 and getting into that, where they said that they would love for me to do that.
Even when I was 16, getting a Level One, I remember being the youngest person on the course, because then, the women's football was null and void: it wasn't around. Now that we have a lot and I see the girls getting into it, we offer them a programme where you can get a coaching qualification.
They'll come down for six weeks and they'll do like a qualification, but every week they'll have to coach and teach. These opportunities weren't there when I was younger, but I'm seeing it now, so I feel a bit of a pioneer!
Women’s football is different - it welcomes everyone. There’s not such a lot of aggressive chanting and swearing and it's influencing the wider game as we go along. I'm very happy to see that because like I said, when I was younger the opportunities weren't there.
