Big Interview: Angela Platt on football, family and the future

“I was in North Macedonia last November (for the Women’s World Cup qualifier), more recently we were in Marbella, Spain, with the senior team, then Israel with the under 17s for the UEFA qualifier. I’ve been to Switzerland with UEFA itself for a Women in Leadership programme and recently was in Austria (for the FIFA Women’s World Cup UEFA qualifiers). I am due to travel to Serbia in May and then it’ll be the UEFA Women’s Euros in July in Southampton.”

The trips, she said, are a good opportunity to build relationships with the countries the teams play against, but don’t really allow much time for seeing the local sights.

“There’s not much downtime when you are on international trips like that because there’s a lot of schedules in place around training regimes and then obviously you have press conferences and so on.”

As well as travelling, the Coleraine woman, who has over 20 years experience as a sports administrator having worked in local government, sporting governing bodies and the voluntary sector, has spent the last few months “understanding the landscape and seeing all the programmes and activities the Irish FA has in place.”

“I’ve been out and about with our clubs, our communities and the staff and volunteers who work within the game, just to try and support them and understand what’s been happening.”

A footballing family

The 42-year-old comes from a family with serious footballing pedigree. Her father David played for Larne and Glenavon, while her brother David represented Northern Ireland at youth international level.

He played for Derry City and then Coleraine, who he then went on to manage.

Two of her uncles also played at senior level: Jim Platt, who played most notably for Middlesbrough and Northern Ireland, and John Platt in the Irish League for Cliftonville.

A former elite athlete herself, Angela played for the Ireland senior international hockey team as goalkeeper from 2000 to 2006, amassing 75 caps in the process, after playing hockey, football, athletics and badminton at youth international level.

Sport would definitely seem to be in her DNA, but surprisingly, Angela said it wasn’t her first love.

“Growing up in the countryside, I loved animals and I actually wanted to be a vet when I was young. I still love animals, we have dogs as a family.

“But I very quickly realised that sport was the passion and obviously it was the avenue that I wanted to go down. Initially I wanted to be a PE teacher, then I saw there were wider opportunities within sports development.”

The youngest of three (she also has a sister, who isn’t particularly into sport), her family is “close-knit”.

“There’s only four years between the three of us. As a family we were all encouraged and supported by our parents to do whatever we wanted to do and enjoy that.”

She recalls a childhood spent playing football, often “competitively” in the garden with her brother.

“My brother was the one that inspired me to be involved in the sport. He would claim I was his target practice in the garden, so that’s why I became so good from a goal-keeping perspective - we still joke about that.

“I didn’t start playing hockey until I went to secondary school - that was the first time I picked up a hockey stick and then I fell in love with it as a sport and was blessed to have the international career that I had.

“I have early memories of going and watching dad play on many a Saturday morning and then seeing my brother growing up into his football career as well.”

Building on the work of the IFA

Angela said she hopes to build on the brilliant work that has been undertaken in shaping women’s football in Northern Ireland, admitting she does feel a weight of responsibility attached to the role of first director.

“It is an important role and, yes, there is a responsibilty attached to that, but I am also blessed that I am able to take up the baton from those who have paved the way before.

“There’s been a lot of volunteers and a lot of administrators in football before me that have helped to shape where we are now, so there is a responsibility to build on that legacy and make opportunities for further development.”

She added there’s also a wider collective responsibility for the volunteer network, clubs and schools, to ensure “we all work towards achieving those goals of developing our game and encouraging more people to get involved in it.”

“There weren’t too many opportunities for girls playing football when I was growing up and there weren’t many clubs, whereas now we’ve got a really successful programme at international level, our club game’s growing and our school activities have obviously increased significantly. We’ve got a huge fan base of boys and girls following what we are doing.

“We are definitely in a better place, but there’s more that we can do and that’s part of my role to make sure we continue to build on that,

“It’s exciting to see that girls can enjoy the great game that we are all involved in.”

‘Emotional women’

Angela Platt declined to comment on the furore earlier this week when NI Women’s manager Kenny Shiels said “women are more emotional than men” following NI’s 5-0 defeat by England, although NI captain Marissa Callaghan later backed Shiels saying, “collectively we stand by our manager.”

Away from the controversy, Angela wants to focus her efforts on developing opportunities for women and girls.

“In terms of the tangible steps we are taking, we have staff resource and volunteer resource working on the ground in a number of areas to grow the school game, in particular to create those opportunities through our Shooting Stars programme and the Disney Playmaker programme for the primary school age group.”

A big priority, she said, is ensuring coaches and volunteers, working in club and community settings, are given proper support.

“It’s very often the people that are coaching sports that make it enjoyable for the individuals that come into the game, so there’s a big focus for us around really developing the volunteer workforce and the coaching workforce, so that we can have better-equipped and more knowledgeable coaches across the country growing the game on our behalf.”

She is also keen to push the mental health benefits of sport.

“It’s that collegiate approach, where you are with your friends, your peers and you can have that support network that I think is really vital for us, particularly as we have come through such a difficult time with Covid and also the pressures that people have now in life in general. It’s a positive that has benefitted me through my life as well. That is definitely one of the big pluses of getting involved in sport and we do have a number of programmes within the Irish FA around mental health support that is available to people if they need that.”

And in terms of talent, and without naming names, she said there are plenty of up-and-coming players to watch out for.

“I have been blessed to see our U17s and U19s international squads recently in their UEFA competitions and the talent that is there. I really look forward to seeing those young women grow in their footballing opportunities, but also as people to impact positively on others. I think there are a lot of young women who will inspire their next generation. The beauty is that they all come from different walks of life and all aspects of diversity in terms of communities and their backgrounds, and that’s the great thing about football - it brings everyone together.”