Spotlight on: Mollie Kmita
Although we are not back on the pitch yet, we have been working hard to ensure the Girls Super League London (GSL) community gets to know the amazing individuals behind the scenes that will contribute to creating a hub for girls football in London, combatting the problems facing the women’s game around pitch availability, refereeing quality and standardisation of games.
On the inaugural virtual GSL meeting we were joined by none other than the incredible Mollie Kmita, who shared her experiences in the footballing world and the challenges she had to overcome.
Mollie Kmita on her joining the GSL as a committee member.
Mollie, what has your involvement within football looked like?
I’ve always played football, whether it be outside with the boys down the park where it would be a little bit of a football. And then when I was in year seven, I got the chance to go and train at Tottenham Hotspur. And a long story short, I was there for nine years and then got the chance to go and play at West Ham. I went to America and played in Florida for a little while. And then within that time when I got home from Florida, I set up a girls grassroots club in Enfield where I lived in North London, basically for young girls who just wanted to play football when the opportunity wasn’t really there. So that was something my twin sister Rosie and I were really passionate about. And now I work heavily within the media - I work for and Manchester United TV and follow their women’s team to all games and yeah, really grateful to be honest and quite humbled about everything that's happening in the women's game. And I'm really excited for all the young girls coming up now because it really is only just the beginning.
What challenges have you faced?
Personally, for me, growing up, the women's game was in a very different place to what it is now, and I remember being a lot younger.
We have other brothers and sisters, and I remember being really reliant on other people's parents to take myself and my twin sister to football. So whether it be training matches, like we literally had to rely on other people to get us around. And I remember that in a really challenging time.
Having to rely on other people for your own career was quite an anxious time as well, because if someone couldn't take you that week, I'll call you this week, you know, and that was a big barrier for us. And that's why I think it's so important to have multiple opportunities in local areas for girls, not where you have to travel to sort of progressing your career. So that was a big, big barrier.
Also another barrier growing up was in primary school. The first girls football team was set basically by Rosie and myself and we sort of pushed it to get going. I remember one teacher was loving the girls playing football and really seeing the benefit of it.And I thought, wow, like if you don't have those people within the school, if you don't have that, maybe that one teacher, if you don’t have those people believing in girls football it just won't happen. So I know that now the opportunities are much better but for us growing it was a huge barrier.
Lack of role models
Growing up I think, it really lacked female role models. There was no social media, there wasn’t anything like Instagram or Twitter where I could go on my feet and just see all these amazing girls playing football or saw women's football, on TV. There were no women in media. So I guess the inspiration was really limited. But now we do have an amazing women's football community. You have got clubs like Bloomsbury, Level 7 Academy, the Girls Super League itself that understand the importance of creating those communities where us as young girls just feel accepted and empowered to be. Girls love football.
Do you have any role models?
Level seven is a full time education program for 16 to 19 year olds. That basically means you can study full time and pay for school full time. And it all came back to, I guess, our own experiences. And we used to say to each other, what if we didn't get the opportunities or if we didn't meet the people that we've met that led us to where we are now. And I think as a young girl in the guy at the age of 16, I remember that we had to make a choice between progressing with academics or progressing with basketball. And that was the whole process for high level discipline. It was about eliminating that choice and creating something that allows us to allows you to do both and exposing, you know, these young girls to opportunities and experiences along the way
Advice for young ballers?
I can only speak from my own experiences and I hope that it's not as much of a challenge now, but just seeing how uneducated I was growing up in terms of just not knowing what was out there and not knowing where to look for it. So I think for me it's just about being exposed and exposing yourself to as much as you can. Use social media to connect with people and network. Use social media in a positive way from that perspective and just educate yourselves, because I didn't do that when I was younger and I regret it.
Why are you supporting the GSL?
This is what should be happening, everyone connecting, everyone networking and just pushing people in the right direction because that's what has been left for so long. So for me, all about creating opportunities. And I do think that the Girls Super League London does that. It literally does exactly that. For me is just about getting more girls, playing more football. So well done to everyone for making this happen!
