According to rahyafte (the missionaries and converts website)A woman from Leicester is blazing a trail for South Asian Muslims in football and hopes to inspire others to follow her lead. Annie Zaidi or AnnieZ as she is known, is on track to becoming the first South Asian, Muslim in Europe to complete her UEFA A licence in football coaching.
While that would be a huge accomplishment, already her efforts have not gone unnoticed. After earning her UEFA B licence, in 2017 she received the British Empire Medal for services to football coaching.
The assistant head of year at Judgemeadow secondary school in Evington has made it her mission to help young, BAME women and girls to get into football. But despite the huge growth in the women’s game – especially as England have made it all the way to the World Cup final this weekend – AnnieZ, 39, began her journey at a time where girls’ football provisions were not as readily available.
“I kicked her first ball at eight-years-old in my back garden with her older brothers,” she said. “I joined my school football team, which was filled with boys, but I remember scoring my first hattrick at my debut match, and that’s the moment that I knew that, that’s what I wanted to do.”
Dream of becoming a professional player
Despite having big dreams of becoming a professional player, AnnieZ said that she did not know the journey would entail. “I really wanted to be a professional player, but there was a lack of female players and girls teams, and opportunities were non-existent,” she said. “I parked my dream to one side for a while, but it was always a part of me. Even at birthdays or on Eid, I’d have a football at my feet.”
After completing a masters degree in Community Development and Youth Work Studies in the early 2000s, AnnieZ knew that she had found her purpose. She said: “Part of my degree entailed doing some youth work placements.
“I did some coaching at a youth centre, and It was there that I realised that football is much more than just a kickaround. It broke down a lot of stereotypes, because after the tragedy of the 9/11 and 7/7 attacks, you can imagine the perceptions of a South Asian, Muslim girl with a head scarf.
Confronting stereotypes
“Imagine walking into a team of about 30 adolescents, young, white men. You can imagine their questions and frustrations and ignorance, but the one thing that brought us together was football – and I realised then, that was where my calling was.”
After completing her masters, AnnieZ moved back home and became a Sunday league manager of a grassroots team. “People thought I was the secretary or the first aider or the welfare officer, but I loved telling them that I was the manager – I loved changing the narrative.”
She has since set up the AnnieZ Coaching foundation, a stepping stone for girls to step into a football career. The foundation has a set, 12 week programme that provides young women with long-term technical skills, and each player is provided with a personal development plan.
“Yes it’s free, but it’s not a babysitting club. The girls come in and learn how to dribble, how to pass the ball, and all the things that make them more confident and to not feel out of place on the pitch.
‘Our ethos is to empower girls’
“I love the girls but the purpose is not to keep them, but to help them to grow and develop and signpost them into different clubs in the areas that they live in. Not many South Asian girls take up football, not because they don’t want to, but because they don’t have the skills.
“Our ethos is to ‘empower, inspire and encourage girls’, particularly from black and South Asian backgrounds to fulfil their dreams and I’m living proof that dreams can come true. Representation matters to this generation and this generation wants someone that looks like them and that’s why the girls feel comfortable with me.”
As for her upcoming A coaching qualification, AnnieZ said that it has taken 10 long years of ‘blood sweat and tears’ to get to this point, but she knows that it will encourage other, young, South Asians to take up coaching. She said: “It takes a long time, especially when you’re not from a football background or family, and I had to take the long way around it, but I wanted to do it because I’m a good coach, I do it with pride and integrity.
“There have been moments of doubts, questions and thinking that if I wasn’t South Asian, maybe I would have got it easier, but going up and down the motorway, coaching different teams till 10pm at night, sometimes in freezing cold temperatures – has all been to get to this moment, and I can’t quit now.”
Footballing legend Ian Wright, has teamed up with the Barclays’ Community Football Fund, which targets grassroots projects to provide facilities to accommodate girls. The fund has supported AnnieZ to continue running Sunday sessions, and provided them with fresh equipment.
She said: “I’m so grateful for initiatives like this. They have helped me and the girls out massively, and has even given some of the older girls a chance to take on some paid, coaching work.”
Source: leicestermercury.co.uk
