By Alice Wright
The Emirates stadium went pitch black as the light show was about to start. Bobbie Murphy was in the middle of it all. Bright lights were flashing around the stadium and phone torches lit up the stands. Next, the flames roared by the dugouts and the Arsenal chants bellowed from above her. She couldn’t believe what she was witnessing.
Last year Bobbie was working as head embroiderer at a fashion firm, making personalised pyjamas. Now she’s an apprentice groundsperson at her childhood football club – Arsenal.
Despite an uplift of women playing football across all levels, only two per cent of the grounds management sector, which is responsible for maintaining pitches across the country, is female.
Three years ago, girly girl Bobbie had no interest in football. Her family have always been Arsenal mad, but it wasn’t until her sister started playing that she became invested in the sport. “I started watching my sister at training and during matches and I found myself becoming heavily involved.” She says, “I was on the sidelines shouting, ‘come on girls’ and I knew that I had fallen in love with football.”
Bobbie opted away from the traditional route to university and started waitressing and decorating cakes to pass time whilst she figured out what she wanted to do. As the café demanded her to take up weekends, she knew she had to quit. “I took up football coaching which meant I couldn’t work at the weekend when they wanted me to decorate cakes for parties.”
The 20-year-old got the opportunity to coach her little sister’s team and thrived on it immediately. “I thought I will give it a go and see how I get on and I loved it. I got started with my level one coaching badge then progressed to my level two and ended up as qualified as I could be for a grassroots team,” she says.
She started looking for a full-time job and came across a local company called HA Designs. “I didn’t know I was going to be doing embroidery,” she says. “It did say more admin side, so I thought that would be easy.”
Bobbie knew she couldn’t stay forever but there was no progression. “It was the kind of job where you think ‘ohhh I never want to leave because I love the people’ but I was getting too comfortable and I knew I wanted to work in football,” she says. The grounds job at Arsenal came at the perfect timing.”
Whilst coaching at her sister’s football club Bobbie was told of the apprenticeship role coming up at Arsenal and at first nearly didn’t apply. “I was umming and ahhing because I was like ‘what you just cut grass for a living?’ I’m quite a girly girl barring football – that’s my tomboy side,” she says. “I decided to put in for it because I thought ‘why not?’”
A month later she received an email. Arsenal invited Bobbie for an interview. Out of 155 people, only five made it through to be interviewed and she was the only girl. “I was a bit taken back but I thought ‘You know what I could see myself being here’,” she says. “I got introduced to Tara and I saw how much she was loving it and it made me realise that a woman can do this kind of job. If she can do it, then I can do it.”
Two weeks later she received a phone call. Out of 155 people Bobbie was chosen. “I was a bit shocked and started crying at the embroidery shop because I couldn’t believe it. Being a big Arsenal fan as well my family were all so buzzing.”
As an Arsenal fan, this was the absolute dream job for Bobbie and her favourite part of the job is being around the players 24/7. “At first, I was a bit starstruck, but now they’re just normal people. After training the players will give us a wave, Lotte Wubben-Moy has remembered my name which is really lovely because she didn’t have to do that”.
On Sunday 3rd March, Bobbie was part of the first all-female grounds team for the North London derby between Arsenal Women and Tottenham Women. “The event had a massive impact on women in the industry as they feel like they’re being recognised and shown that women can do this job. We are breaking barriers,” she says.
At 6:30 am Bobbie and fellow Arsenal groundswoman Tara headed to the Emirates to set up before the other 11 girls arrived. The nerves were really starting to kick in now. “It got to about an hour leading up to the other girls arriving and then I started getting nervous. But after that I embraced it because my family were there and the team I coach were there too and I wanted to make them proud,” Bobbie says.
Two years ago, she was working as a waitress unsure of what she wanted to do and now she had just made history. “I didn’t realise women could be in this industry because if you don’t see it, you don’t know you can be it.”
With lots of girls across the country wanting to play football at a high level unfortunately the reality is not everyone will become professional footballers. Bobbie is proof that there’s another way into football that isn’t necessarily considered, and you don’t need any qualifications.
“I did a talk with year sevens and year nine girls. Not one of them was interested, but now they have that little that seed in their mind and they now know this is another route into football if they want to get their hands dirty,” Bobbie says.
Not only did Bobbie prepare the pitch ahead of the North London derby but she also did this ahead of Arsenal men’s Premier League game against Newcastle.
Before the match kicked off there was a light show going off whilst Bobbie was diveting on the pitch. It suddenly went pitch black and, in the stands, she saw phone torches flashing. Then the flames went off and she was in the middle of it all. “You could hear all the Arsenal chants and the atmosphere was just crazy.”
With just 2 per cent of women in the industry, Bobbie urges any young girls to just go for it. “If you have the passion then you should just do it. It’s a good experience I’ve learned a lot of skills that I wouldn’t have ever learned if I just went to an office job in London or something like that.
It’s really important to increase diversity, not only with women, but with different cultures in the industry too. “Unfortunately, it is just middle-aged white men in the in the industry, so to be more diverse and learn from new people would be amazing. As well, definitely more women.”
As for the future, Bobbie has no plans to leave the grounds management industry anytime soon. “I am loving my journey at the moment, but you never know what the future holds! I believe I will always have a connection with football whatever the industry I go down”.
