England footballer and MND advocate Steph Houghton has received a Honorary Degree from the University of Leeds as part of their Summer Graduation celebrations.
00:00I mean a real honour to be honest I think once we got kind of notified that I was going to be selected to have one it was a surprise but ultimately I think this whole day has been amazing so I'm really honoured and really humbled by the award and very thankful as well.
00:17And what was sort of the process in terms of being told that this was going to happen?
00:22My agent actually got an email from the university just to say that I'd been nominated and I think the next time it was like okay it's been confirmed so then from then on it's about the arrangements to find a date to come and to come back to Leeds so it was all really smooth and we had so much help from the university which was amazing and yeah today has really topped it off.
00:44And obviously early on in your career you played at that time Leeds Carnegie, how big a role did they play sort of in the development of your career?
00:51Massive to be honest I think I spent three years at the club and I learnt a lot about myself but also it helped me really develop as a player and also a person and I think the people that I played with, the manager, the whole club and Leeds itself it's a very special city and my best friend still lives here, my godson's here so I'm always here as much as I can to see them and yeah it's definitely got a special place in my heart
01:21and I think my three years there taught me a lot and I think my three years there taught me a lot. I was a young player, had to come through some big injuries and to be resilient and yeah I always had the best times when I was in Leeds.
01:32And what would you say you love most about the city?
01:35I think obviously coming from the north east I think generally it's the people, I think obviously living in London previously it's just a different kind of way of living and way of being every single day and I don't know there's just a sense of home I think when I'm in Leeds I think everybody's the same, everybody's polite, everybody's humble, everybody's hard work and they're the ethics that I really kind of embodied my career on so to come back and to be part of that in this city was very special.
02:01And in recent years we've obviously seen more of a growth in women's football with obviously the success of the Lionesses, how important is it that there continues to be that drive to sort of push it and push it closer and closer to the men's game?
02:15Yeah I think for me I think women's football is on its own path, I think it's so important that even though you strive to be at the level of what the men's game is, I think we have to be realistic that we have to go our own way and do things a little bit different but I do think in terms of the strides that we've made especially over the last few years and I think that's helped with the Lionesses being so successful and reaching major tournament finals, obviously winning the Euros.
02:40we have players now that are young girls as heroes and role models that they want to look up to and now people are seeing really real value in our sport and hopefully that continues.
02:51I mean I think as long as we're steady and we're progressive with it and we don't really go jump straight into like trying to kind of overreach and really sell ourselves short,
03:01I think it's important that we gradually grow for not just obviously at the top, at the highest level but for grassroots football as well.
03:07And what would you say are potential next steps that you think the game could take in terms of to push that?
03:14I think for me I look at the Euros that's going on at the moment and obviously it's been marketed really, really well, especially here in England.
03:21I think every time you turn the TV on there's some sort of lioness on any advert that's on there and there's football there and it's seen for young girls where you look at how many people are going to these games.
03:32I think for me that's a big push for especially the WSL in this country is how do we market to be able to get crowds through the gates and to kind of have that as a continuous thing.
03:43So we can continuously see these role models that are performing week in, week out and overall for me I think grassroots we can really put some more money into that to help develop these young girls,
03:54to give them an opportunity to do what I did for a number of years.
03:56And obviously you mentioned the lionesses and obviously it's the semi-final tonight against Italy.
04:02What would be your sort of message to the team ahead of tonight's big match?
04:06I think they know what they need to do and for me I think it's just have no fear and really enjoy the pressure of being the favourites in the game and rightly so.
04:15And I think two more games to go, that's all I've got to think and hopefully they get a big win tonight.
