It was the fiery clash of the top two at the time. Both were unbeaten with identical records heading into the fixture, setting it up to be the perfect match-up. Two London clubs, bonded only by their city and their demand for success, and in every other sense, opposites – birthing an era of rivalry.
‘Tradition’ vs. ‘New money’, North vs. West, Red vs. Blue:
Arsenal’s Invincibles vs. Roman’s wealthy Chelsea
Even now, Anita Abayomi, reminisces back to the first match she watched with her dad, and the first time she fell in love with the beautiful game.
Abayomi is the co-founder of the Goal Diggers Podcast, an all-female football podcast, set up in April last year.
From her living room in London she vividly recalls the space being small in size but a dense in emotion as it quickly filled with anticipation from the first blow of the referee, Paul Durkin’s, whistle. Her dad sat, alone, on the 3-seater sofa, with his eyes firmly peeled to the television screen, only breaking focus every so often to glance over at a 7-year-old Abayomi, who watched the game from her drawing table.
She says: “My dad is an avid football fan, I remember watching my first game with him. An Arsenal vs Chelsea match and Arsenal had won 2-1.
“I can remember the excitement that my dad had watching the match, the waves of emotions and I was sold from that point.”
That day Highbury stadium was a pit of roars as 38,000 fans packed into the ground whilst Roman Abramovich’s new blues entered the lion’s den. On the blustery autumn day, it was Edu’s deflected free kick which put the home side ahead at the clock end within 5 minutes, however moments later Chelsea’s £17m man, Hernan Crespo equalised in spectacular style.
And then with only 15 minutes remaining it seemed as though, as the table suggested, the two could not be split. But, Carlo Cudicini's calamitous error gifted Thierry Henry with his 7th goal of what would go on to be a golden boot winning season, as the Frenchman netted 30 times in total.
Abayomi admits Henry became somewhat of an idol to her younger self, “I tried going out in the cage with the boys at lunch time in year 3, sizing them up calling myself the “lady Henry,” she jokingly mentions.
So, from fan to content creator, Abayomi opened up about how growing up she didn’t know any other girls like her who were interested in football, and it was as she got older she realised she wanted to create a platform for women to come together and talk about football. She explains: “[I was at] University and I sat with my friend Bree and asked her what she thought about starting an all-female football podcast. The idea was pretty crazy at first but a couple years later and podcasts started booming. I thought advertising it would be a great way to meet more girls in football like me.”
The Goal Diggers Podcast is a weekly show consisting of a cast who are all women and all an ethnic minority. Abayomi is proud to say that she has created a unique platform to represent BAME women: “We are actually all ethnic minorities which wasn’t on purpose to begin with but I look at it now and think wow. Black, Asian women have created a safe haven for women exactly like us. It’s surreal and it makes me want to enhance the brand and do more things for us.
“You get younger girls asking you how to get into football without men patronising them, some women call our Podcast a safe haven for them. Of course, you get several football podcasts, but there’s a different connection for women who enjoy men’s football when they hear women just like them speaking about it.” She says.
So, being such successful women in a male dominated field, I asked if that brought online ‘trolls’ and how she deals with that. She nervously laughed it off and assured me now they aren’t phased by negative comments about their gender. She says: “You can troll all you want, tell me to get back in the kitchen or whatever but at the end of the day, we aren’t doing this for you.”
Finally, we discussed staying relevant in such a saturated market, and how is it possible? Abayomi informs: “Well consistency is key. [You] have to keep going no matter how hard it is. If we want to compete with the men, we have to stay consistent. We’re already one step behind as women so that is extremely key.”
Abayomi’s Goal Diggers podcast has already come a long way in the first 12 months and its clear that their uniqueness sets them apart from any other podcast, and although the comments can get negative, the Goal Diggers are proving that strength comes from tackling adversity and difference.
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