Leigh Nicol Hopes BOXPARK Campaign Will Encourage Teenage Girls To Stay In Sport

A new two-month campaign, Womxn Who Play, launched in London last week in partnership with Chivas Regal to coincide with the UEFA Women’s Euro in England, aims to promote female participation in sport as research shows that many girls fail to stay in organized competition beyond their teenage years.

Leigh Nicol, currently playing for south London team Crystal Palace in the English second tier is one of twelve women from a variety of disciplines and backgrounds who are attempting to raise awareness of the challenges faced by girls playing sport and the lack of education they receive when contemplating a sporting career.

Scottish midfielder, Nicol was uprooted from her home when she joined the prestigious Arsenal academy at the age of 16 in 2012. She revealed to me “the dream compared to the reality was completely different. I always dreamed of it as a young girl but when it came to actually packing my suitcases, waking up one morning and having to make my own bed and do my own washing without much guidance, it was really scary, something that I wasn’t properly prepared for. You go from being a young girl to being an adult overnight really.”

With the financial rewards for playing sport still lagging behind the professional opportunities available to men, young players are often compelled to remain in education or work as well as train at an elite level. “We have to combine full-time study, while trying to fit in a part-time job alongside trying to train full-time to make sure you’re in the best shape possible to be able to compete. You’re trying to bring in money because you are trying to pay the bills while full-time education and full-time training can really ruin the game for you because you don’t have any time to enjoy anything. You’re under a lot of pressure all the time.”

Therefore it is no surprise that earlier this year, a study by Women In Sport, reported that more than 1 million girls in the UK lose interest in sport as teenagers. 68% said that a fear of feeling judged prevented them from taking part. Nicol, who was the victim of a phone hack in which private images of her her stolen, understands all to well what young girls in sport have to deal with as interest in all facets of the women’s game increases exponentially.

“Women’s sport needs all the media coverage that it can get,” she tells me, “but unfortunately that is going to come with other pressures. That is being sexualized. Personally, I get worried, that perhaps maybe my glutes and my thighs are going to be sexualized. I look at how big they are and not the fact that I’m just playing football. With the more coverage, the more sexual comments you may get.”

“I do think that the positives are definitely starting to outweigh the negatives. It just comes down to each individual and are they ready for it, are they prepared for it. Have they done enough work on themselves to be able to deal with someone commenting on their glutes and their bum, telling them what they think of them on social media. It can be very demoralizing.”

“I think in those teenage years, that can have a massive effect because you don’t know who you are yet and you’re trying to work it out. You rely a lot on other people’s comments to kind of feel good or get that external validation. Especially for teenagers, no-one wants to look at negative comments about their body. It’s not why you play sports.”

The study also revealed that young girls may need more support to engage with sport as they go through puberty, as a remarkable 70% admitted they would avoid sport when menstruating. Leading clubs like Manchester City have started to utilize pioneering research to provide their players with real-time information on how their hormone levels affect their ability to train and tailoring their programs around this. Yet below that, even for semi-professional teams, like Crystal Palace, it remains problematic to make allowances for individuals with training time already limited.

Nicol explained me to the difficulties she encounters. “I personally am a lot more tired when it’s leading up to that time of the month. You feel a lot heavier than usual, so you feel out of shape. You want to snack a lot more, you want to eat a lot more bad foods, because you’re just craving fatty food. You’re sleeping is affected by it, massively, you have broken sleep because of it.”

“Then to go and have to compete at an elite level is really hard with your emotions, because there is an imbalance there. It’s difficult to be able to keep pushing and be resilient while dealing with it. It’s something I can’t remember not having because obviously I’ve had it from a young age. It’s not nice, everyone hates that time of the month.”

“Physically, alongside you being tired, there’s a worry that you might leak. That’s always at the back of your head. Especially if you wear shorts that can obviously show if you’re leaking. For me personally, I find it very embarrassing, I do get worried. Subconsciously, I’m always thinking about it on game day, with the social media and the coverage we’re now getting. It’s something you’re always thinking about, having to make those changes quite frequently. The physio’s always got a spare pair of shorts in the bag just in case it happens. That’s maybe perhaps the things you don’t see.”

After Arsenal, Nicol dropped down a division to forge out a successful career in the game and would like to see young girls educated on their mindset to improve their ability with failure. “Sometimes we’re brought up in a bubble in which failure isn’t meant to happen. In a lot of mindset coaching they work on how you think, your perception of things, how you communicate effectively. I think that’s a huge thing, understanding yourself, how you react to things and why you react to things.”

Originally coined ‘the world’s first pop-up mall’ upon its launch in 2010, the first BOXPARK in Shoreditch, East London aimed to effortlessly fuse the concepts of the modern street food market and the pop-up retail mall. Two more BOXPARKs have been opened in Croydon, south London (2016), and Wembley, north-west London (2018). Each BOXPARK will host live screenings of every match at the UEFA Women’s Euro after becoming a hub for fans following the England men’s team at Euro 2020 last summer.

The two-month Womxn Who Play program running from June 10 to July 31 features an onsite exhibition at Shoreditch and Croydon, a series of motivational panel talks with the talent and guest speakers, live podcasts and workshops. Head or PR and marketing, Tashia Cameron said “at BOXPARK, we are very proud to consistently play a role in providing an inclusive and open space for fans of sports to come together. We truly hope this campaign can contribute to not only celebrating women and increasing the visibility for them in sport, but to also help open a discussion around the setbacks some may face, and how we can help overcome these.”