I’ve loved football for as long as I can remember. I’m a lifelong Tottenham Hotspur supporter, which probably tells you everything you need to know about my ability to make sensible decisions.
My earliest football memories involve Spurs winning the FA Cup in 1981 and again in 1982. I was five when they won the second one, and I can still remember the song Tottenham, Tottenham, with its promise that we’d do it all again, just like the year before. Clearly, I was hooked.
I’ll let you do the maths, although I’d rather you didn’t.
Despite this lifelong obsession, when I became the father of two girls, it never really occurred to me that I’d spend much of my adult life involved in grassroots football. Looking back, that’s a rather embarrassing admission. I loved football, watched football and talked about football, yet somehow I’d never really imagined my daughters playing it.
As it turns out, they had other ideas.
It started on the sidelines at tennis
Almost seven years ago, I found myself standing on the sidelines of a Saturday morning tennis lesson, chatting to another dad. Let’s call him Trevor, mainly because that’s what I’ve decided to call him.
Trevor mentioned that his eldest daughter was heading off to play football after tennis. Apparently, she’d invited my eldest daughter, May, to come along and give it a go.
I thought, why not? A bit of running around, some fresh air, another activity to keep the kids entertained. What could possibly go wrong?
May absolutely loved it. And, as anyone with two children will understand, her younger sister Elsie wasn’t about to let her have all the fun. Two years younger and permanently determined to keep up with her big sister, Elsie soon followed.
Before I knew it, our weekends were being rearranged around football fixtures, training sessions and increasingly complicated logistics. The tennis, incidentally, didn’t last.
I am apparently incapable of having a casual hobby
If you’ve read my Ironman journey, you’ll probably have spotted a recurring theme. I have a slightly unfortunate habit of becoming rather too involved in things.
Running a 10K wasn’t enough, so I ran marathons. Cycling wasn’t enough, so I took up triathlon. Eventually, I found myself doing an Ironman. Football followed a remarkably similar trajectory.
At first, I was just another dad on the touchline, watching the girls play and occasionally offering the sort of completely unnecessary tactical advice that parents are so good at providing. Then I started helping out. A few cones here, a bit of encouragement there. Nothing serious.
And then, somehow, I became a coach.
What started as an opportunity to spend time with my daughters developed into something I genuinely love. I became increasingly interested in how children learn, how teams develop and how to help young players improve without losing the enjoyment that brought them to football in the first place.
Eventually, I completed my UEFA C coaching qualification.
Not bad for someone who originally just went along to watch.
From putting cones out to Vision Girls FC
Today, I’m involved with Vision Girls FC, founded by Rico, who has built something genuinely special. I get to coach alongside him and a group of people who care enormously about giving girls the chance to develop, compete and enjoy football.
Anyone who has coached girls’ football will know just how much energy, enthusiasm and personality these teams bring. They work incredibly hard, support each other, compete fiercely and are perfectly capable of letting you know when they disagree with your tactical decisions. Usually quite loudly.
Of course, grassroots coaching isn’t all tactical masterclasses and inspirational team talks. There’s the administration, the endless WhatsApp messages, the availability spreadsheets, the disappearing footballs and the weekly challenge of finding someone who can actually referee. Sometimes I think running a business is easier.
But then you watch a player do something in a match that you’ve spent weeks working on in training. Or you see a girl who was once terrified of making a mistake suddenly demanding the ball. Those are the moments that make it worthwhile.
Making girls feel like footballers
Having two daughters who play has made me much more aware of the opportunities girls have, and sometimes don’t have, in sport.
When I said I hadn’t imagined my daughters becoming footballers, it wasn’t because I thought girls shouldn’t play. The idea simply hadn’t occurred to me. And that’s rather the point about unconscious bias.
Women’s and girls’ football has changed enormously, but there’s still work to do at grassroots level. Access to facilities, good coaching, appropriate competition and the resources to run clubs all matter. So does making girls feel that football belongs to them every bit as much as it does to boys.
At Vision we’ve even given the girls a proper signing-day experience, complete with contracts, photographs, new kits and a backdrop that wouldn’t look out of place at a Premier League club.
Is it a little over the top for grassroots football? Possibly. Do the girls love it? Of course they do. And why shouldn’t they?
This is where the businessman unfortunately reappears
Away from the football pitch, my day job involves running Yellow Jersey, a specialist sports insurance business. Historically, we’ve been best known for bicycle insurance, but we’ve expanded into sports travel insurance covering more than 500 different sports and activities.
Here I was spending a considerable amount of my spare time helping to develop a girls’ football club, while running a business built around supporting people who participate in sport. There was a fairly obvious connection.
So when the opportunity arose for Yellow Jersey to sponsor Vision Girls FC, it felt like a natural thing to do. Our logo now appears on the girls’ home and away shirts, and it’s something I’m genuinely proud of.
Not because I particularly enjoy seeing our company logo on football kits, although I’m sure our marketing team would approve. But because I know firsthand how much work goes into providing opportunities for young players. Grassroots clubs rely on committed coaches, supportive parents, volunteers and businesses willing to help.
Sponsorship helps clubs invest in equipment, facilities and the overall experience they can offer their players. If we can help a few more girls enjoy football, develop confidence and create brilliant memories along the way, that’s money well spent.
Sport doesn’t stay in one box
My own sporting journey has taken me from running to cycling, triathlon and now football coaching. The same is true of the people we insure: someone who starts cycling might take on a triathlon; a young footballer might discover skiing, surfing or sailing on a family holiday.
I’ve written before about our family sports holidays and how having children changed the way I approached sport. The days of organising holidays entirely around my own training are, regrettably, long gone.
That’s one reason we’ve developed Yellow Jersey’s sports travel insurance beyond its cycling roots. We cover hundreds of sports and activities, including competitive sport, and offer options for families travelling to support their children.
That includes football travel insurance for players heading overseas for tournaments, training camps and competitions.
As a parent who spends an alarming amount of time driving to football matches, training camps and tournaments, I understand those practicalities rather better than I once did. Sports travel insurance isn’t necessarily the most exciting subject in the world, but when your child gets injured before a football tour, or a policy excludes the very sport you’re travelling to play, it suddenly becomes rather more interesting.
And, for once, I didn’t have to persuade anyone that buying more football kit was a sensible financial decision.
Seven years after that conversation at tennis
It’s strange to think that a casual conversation on a Saturday morning almost seven years ago could have had such a big impact on our family. Had Trevor not mentioned football, perhaps the girls would have carried on playing tennis. Perhaps I’d have spent my weekends doing something sensible, like gardening or sitting down.
Instead, I’ve gained a whole new appreciation for girls’ football, completed a coaching qualification, met some fantastic people and spent countless hours standing on freezing touchlines. I’ve watched May and Elsie grow in confidence, make friendships and develop a genuine love for the game.
Almost seven years after that chance conversation, both my daughters are still playing football, I’m still on the touchline, and the company I run now sponsors the shirts they wear.
I certainly didn’t see that coming. Although, knowing my daughters, I probably should have.
As for me, I’ll be spending another weekend worrying about substitutions and wondering why I didn’t take up something less demanding.
Like Ironman.
About the author
Ryan Georgiades is Managing Director of Yellow Jersey, a long-suffering Tottenham Hotspur supporter and a UEFA C qualified football coach.
A former Ironman triathlete and keen cyclist, Ryan now spends an unreasonable amount of his spare time coaching girls’ grassroots football at Vision Girls FC, where both his daughters play.
He’s increasingly convinced that coaching children is considerably harder than completing an Ironman, although at least nobody asks him to run a marathon any more.
