Someone's Mum... still...

(Shamelessly sharing my World Cup connections)

I engage with football in my life, much like I engage with Pagan Ceremony - it is sporadic, involves a lot of emotional work, but leaves me with a bit of a ‘high’. For the uninitiated, let me explain…

(A rubbish photo taken of me with my son Theo after an England International at Wembley.)

As one of the MADs (not WAGs - that’s ‘Mums and Dads’) of the World Cup 2006, every four years I am reminded of the extraordinary time when the paparazzi pursued me… well, maybe not me, but those I was with; my son was the youngest player in the squad.

(Crappy ‘photo of a photo’ of one of my paparazzi moments - Baden Baden 2006)

I have mentioned footy here occasionally - the first time in this piece:

https://sherites.substack.com/p/someones-mum

Once you have a foot in that world (or a son…) your whole life changes. Here’s one example of how this can manifest -

Rob-sessed

What is apparent is that these two excerpts from my (unpublished) memoir demonstrate how a family is changed by the success, fame and money, of one of its members.

But today, following the victory of the England team over Norway yesterday (I may be the only person in Scotland celebrating) I thought I’d link a couple of disparate parts of my life - footy and SheRights.

My inspiration to share another anecdote from my past concerning football, came after reading Ann Ledbetter’s brilliant piece this week:

The Female Body Was Never The Problem

Do read this broad analysis that encompasses so much, including the footy reference that caught my attention with this picture:

(As Ann Ledbetter says: I thought it was pretty charming that Haaland, star Norwegian soccer player, added his mother’s surname to his jersey. Based on my research she is not exactly a slouch—she was an accomplished track & field athlete in the 90’s, so she probably contributed to his athleticism! Anyway, leave it to a Scandinavian man :))

I’d go further Ann, as you said, she probably contributed to his athleticism! I know she did.

And so we come to my little bit of trivia, which I think captures an element of what the late, great Terry Pratchett said:

“The thing about football – the important thing about football – is that it is not just about football.”

– Terry Pratchett, The Unseen Academicals

In 2005, the year before my son became a household name by being selected for the England squad by Sven-Göran Eriksson, we all knew he was on his way to being a professional footballer. (In point of fact, I’d stated this quite categorically 4 years previously as a feeling in my bones and some 14 years before that my uncle had read the Tarot cards telling me that one of your children will be world famous… so I wasn’t exactly shocked.)

Being the mother of a budding footballer Someone’s Mum, and avid reader, I had taken to reading books about football, particularly footy memoirs, and that year, 2005 I read Mike Channon: The Authorised Biography by Peter Batt. The appeal of his story were the connections - Channon had attended the same school as me in Wiltshire, Theo was at the Southampton FC Academy where Mike Channon had famously played, and he was now a horse racing trainer living in the next village to us.

The stand out story in his book for me involved Channon’s observations as a breeder of horses and a footballer’s inherited traits.

To make his point he first asks the reader the question - ‘name 2 successful father and son footballers?’ In 2005, in England, the only 2 anyone came up with were Harry Redknapp and son Jamie, and Frank Lampard and father Frank senior. The question never failed me as I parroted my new found knowledge to boast my influence on my son’s success in a male dominated field and his success as an athlete. The fabulous fact:

Their mothers were twins!

What Mike Channon posited, was that like horses, the most important inherited athletic factors came through the mare, the female genes. How I loved this fact - and how wonderful in this ‘man’s world’ (still) we see little corroborations of how instrumental a woman’s contribution physically can be to a successful athlete like Haarland.

Sandra Redknapp (the mother of Jamie) is approaching 80 now and has not been in the best of health, but her sister Patricia Lampard (mother of Frank) died in her 50s. The Redknapps are famously family oriented and not shy of the media so if you want to know more, there is plenty on the internet about them.

I still find it rather funny that I may have written a memoir in retirement, but it is my son who has had a memoir published when he was just 21 years old.

Theo: Growing up Fast (Brilliant title by the way, as he was known for his speed and even Arsene Wenger believed that he was Arsenal’s fastest player - Theo has claimed that he ran 100m in 10.6 at 15 years old here.)

So there you have it. The take home fact today - professional sportsmen can thank their mothers (at least partly) for their success biologically - and that’s even before we get into the sacrifices and nurturing that goes unseen or unrecognised as these boys grow into men.

I am fortunate to have 2 other children whom I can be proud of - their lives too were changed as a result of their brother’s success - positively and otherwise - I don’t think they’ve had an easy time by any means. I have mentioned my daughter previously here eg in a tribute to mothers. I am also blessed in my elder son who is a chef - we share a passion for food, particularly in relation to health, which we regularly discuss.

Proud mum moment - my babies! (1989)

So, when England kick off against Argentina in the semi-finals 2026, I will have a moment thinking of all those mothers who have unconsciously, anonymously and biologically contributed to every one of those international footballers on the pitch.

Good luck England!