JILL Scott admits to a tough beginning when she first started playing football during tonight’s I’m A Celebrity.
The Lioness was speaking to her campmates, A Place in the Sun‘s Scarlette Douglas and newsreader Charlene White about when she first started to play football and admitted it was tough.
She told the pair that the parents of the children she was playing with left her ‘in tears’ as they were shocked that one young girl could beat their sons at the sport.
Jill recalled how the kids were happy for her to be playing but it was the parents that took issue with her being there, saying: “It was the parents, some of the parents from opposing teams. If I beat their precious son, they’d shout stuff at us. Like, ‘kick her, hack her down…’ I’d come off the pitch literally in tears.”
The footballing star revelaed she first dabbled in the sport at the age of 5, admitting: “[I was] playing in the schoolyard with the boys. I literally didn’t realise until a couple of weeks in that I was literally the only girl doing it. But I had loads of energy as a kid.
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“Even my grandma said on my Christening day, my legs were like this [mimed kicking] the whole time. My grandma reckons she said, ‘She’s going to be a footballer’ and I was about 4-months-old or something [then].”
In the Bush Telegraph, presenter Scarlette was left uplifted by Jill’s story as she said: “For some people that could have broken them, but for her, it made her. So things can either make or break you and she took a positive spin on it and she kept going and look how she is.”
Charlene admitted that Jill and her fellow Lionesses had inspired her young daughter to get involved in the sport.
Realising the impact of the Lionesses recent Euros win, Jill said: “Along the way I had to put up with a few mean comments from the parents and stuff like that. Now, knowing that her [Charlene’s] young daughter won’t have to face that stuff, she’s on the start of that journey and it can be an amazing one for her.”
Speaking of the lasting impact of the historic footballing win, she added: “That win’s going to be iconic for a long time but the biggest thing for me – the medal, I look at it and I have the biggest, cheesiest grin ever – but knowing girls can say, ‘You know what, I want to be a footballer’ and it’s normal, it’s fine.”
