A seven-year-old football fan who was picked on for being the only girl on her football team has been invited to be a mascot for the Lionesses.
Darcy’s situation was brought to the attention of Twitter after journalist Anna Kessel tweeted out her story with her mother Sarah’s permission.
Kessel shared a message written by Darcy’s mum which explained how her daughter loves football and plays with a team of boys who are supportive. However, her daughter has had to deal with cruel comments from other teams and their parents about having a girl on the team.
“It’s a tough game that these children are learning but unfortunately for my daughter it doesn’t always end when the whistle blows,” she wrote. “Some refuse to shake her hand at the end of the match.”
The mum continued: “You will not stop her, you will only power her enthusiasm to do better... you will not stop her because the sadness she feels is short-lived and outweighed by her overwhelming love for the sport.
“So my message to any young girl wanting to play is simply do it. You are strong and you are capable. Don’t ever allow anyone to take that from you, as it is not theirs to take.”
The tweet had thousands of likes, and encouraged Sarah to share more photos of her daughter playing football with her team. “I am Darcy’s mum and I have to say the support has been incredible, really shows that these people are the minority,” she wrote. “Just wanted to share a few pics of Darcy with her fantastic teammates as these children are incredible.”
The Lionesses saw the tweet after it had a number of retweets, and got in touch with Sarah. “Hey Sarah. We’d be honoured to have Darcy as a mascot for our next game. Think she’d be up for it?”
To which Darcy’s mum replied...
Not only that, but Darcy was invited by a photographer to have a photoshoot of her playing football, and gold medallist Samantha Quek offered to send Darcy her book where she wrote about issues she had playing football.
Isn’t Twitter great sometimes?
We can’t wait to see Darcy proving the haters wrong when she turns up as the Lioness’s mascot.
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