European Champion Jill Scott Hopes To Bring Community Together In Coffee Shop Venture

On Sunday July 31 at Wembley Stadium, Jill Scott became the most decorated international player in the history of the English game. By finally winning a gold medal with her country at the UEFA Women’s Euro, Scott added to the silver she won at the 2009 Euro and the bronze she collected at the 2015 Women’s World Cup.

Several of the men’s side won gold at the 1966 World Cup before finishing third at the subsequent European championship in 1968 and several of Scott’s team-mates were part of two of the three medal-winning squads between 2009 and 2022, but only one English player in history has been a part of all three.

Speaking a week after becoming a European champion, Scott told me “I was actually thinking about this the other day – I’ve got a full set of medals. I’d much rather they were three gold medals. My World Cup one is currently framed, so I’ll definitely have to get this one framed. It would be nice to obviously have the three of them framed and also, I do lose things, so that would probably be a good idea!”

Now 35, Scott’s incredible international career is now in its seventeenth year. She has scored for England in fourteen of those years over three separate decades. She has played in four World Cup finals, scoring at three, four European championship finals and two Olympics. Currently out of contract at the end of her two-year deal with Manchester City, Scott is on holiday weighing up her options before deciding whether to play on and attempt to play in an unprecedented fifth World Cup finals for England.

Coming off the bench in the UEFA Women’s Euro final, Scott was closest to scorer Chloe Kelly when she scored the extra-time goal which ended the Lionesses long-wait for a first senior trophy. Scott remembers the feeling of running away in celebration. “I think it was just elation, I was looking into her eyes, she was looking into mine. When the referee pointed (for the goal) we just went absolutely crazy.”

Scott was presented with her gold medal by Prince William, the Duke of Cambridge. The pair have fostered an unlikely friendship since Scott slide-tackled the future king during a charity game a decade earlier. Scott is thankful for the support William has given to the women’s team over many years. “He was just genuinely so happy for us all. I felt like we had a good embrace. He’s followed the team for years, he really has. I know sometimes people just say, some people are just told to support and follow but he’s real. You feel like it’s very honest from him, and he’s really genuine. He phoned us in 2015, he came to see us in 2019, he came before this tournament and then to see him at the final, it was a special moment.”

Last week, Kelly has said she will frame the sports bra she revealed during the final and the boots of Alessia Russo have gone on display at the Tower of London but Scott has given away most of her kit to the fans who supported her through thick and thin. “I stayed on that pitch for about an hour and a half and I tried to go around the whole perimeter of the ground just to thank the fans. I think without them, we wouldn’t have done it, so I did go around and give away my boots, my shin pads. . . I don’t think I’ve got anything left. I’ll definitely frame the shirt, 100%. We had a clean shirt as well, so I wore that for the party afterwards. I think mine’s now covered in red wine!”

The Lionesses’ triumph is only the second senior honor won by the England national team after the men’s victory in the FIFA World Cup 56 years before. Since then, ‘The Boys of 66’ have become indelibly marked on the national consciousness, regularly convening for get-togethers and anniversaries. Scott is well-aware that she is now forever linked to the 22 other players in the squad of 2022.

“I think we have an unbreakable bond to be honest. When you’ve been on a journey as incredible as that – the staff as well – you have so many special moments. (On Sunday) I put a message in our (what’s app) group and I said ‘happy one-week anniversary’ and it was just nice, people were sharing what they’d been up to in the week. It’s just great to keep in touch with the girls and, for me, the more times we can catch up the better because it’s not like catching-up with your team-mates, it’s catching-up with your friends.”

One player not part of the squad, was long-time captain, Steph Houghton who lost both the armband and her place in the team following an injury which left her short of match-sharpness going into the tournament. Houghton had captained the Lionesses through many watershed moments in their development into a world-class side, but short of game time, she was cut by Sarina Wiegman from the 28-player provisional squad just weeks before the tournament.

Nevertheless, Scott reveals Houghton was still in the player’s minds during the finals. “Yeah, there was loads of messages,” Scott told me. “She was keeping in touch with the girls. Obviously we said in interviews afterwards that this was for all the players. We were a group of 28 going into this, this was for everybody. Obviously the work Steph has put in over the years has been incredible. As captain, she’s really been the face of women’s football, I would say for the past ten years in England. It’s a sad moment in a way, I wish she’d have made it but, at the same time, I hope that she knows that this is for her as well. Hopefully she can enjoy the moment too.”

Days after winning the UEFA Women’s Euro title in front of 87,192 fans at Wembley stadium and the United Kingdom’s largest television audience of the year so far, Scott returned to serve drinks at Boxx 2 Boxx Coffee, the shop she co-owns with her partner Shelley Unitt. Scott made headlines by taking her winner’s medal in to allow their customers to have their picture taken with it.

“I love being in the shop”, Scott admitted. “Switching off, making coffees, chatting to the customers. They’ve been so supportive over this journey so I took my medal into the shop. It was very busy actually! For a couple of days, we’ve had as many people in on one day as we’ve had in a week in the past. It’s just good to have other stuff because if it’s just football, football, football all the time, you can get a little bit bored, so for me, it’s important to do different things as well.”

After years travelling the world playing the game, Scott is happy to give something back to her partner in a joint-venture which has attracted many famous players and become the focus of a light-hearted BBC podcast series – Jill Scott’s Coffee Club – in which the eponymous host interviews her team-mates. In spite of the shop’s celebrity, Scott is keen to point out, she is indebted to her partner’s efforts, “She would say that I’m more of a hindrance when I’m in the shop than a help to be honest! Shelley’s put so much work into that shop. I think when we first opened, she worked 95 days in a row so she’s worked so hard. I think she hates sometimes that I take all the credit for the coffee shop because I’m only in one day a week. We have some fun days, I think the customers have become our friends so yeah, it’s just nice to have that together.”

“I think if anybody knows me as a person, I’d be quite happy just to go back to my life. The whole purpose of the coffee shop is bringing a community together. We’ve got a lot of customers where the coffee shop is the main point of their day, they might be elderly and they come along and they meet new friends and stuff like that. We do games nights which means customers get off their phones and come and meet new people. The purpose of the coffee shop will never change.”