Price | On balancing work life with Wolves Women captaincy

Wolves Women captain Anna Price admits female footballers must ‘love it to do it’ due to the difficult task of having to balance playing the sport with a busy work life and home life.

With more than 300 appearances in gold and black under her belt during a Wolves career which has spanned almost 25 years, Price knows more than anyone how much commitment it takes to play for her beloved club while, at the same time, teaching the next generation of talented young footballers at Thomas Telford School.

But the skipper, who became a Wolves Foundation ambassador alongside Conor Coady last year, feels she is in a lucky position to still be leading her team ahead of a second round Vitality FA Cup tie against Nottingham Forest on Sunday, which will be live on Wolves TV.

On preparing for Sunday’s FA Cup tie

“I’d be lying if I said the way the league season was cancelled hadn’t had an impact on us, so it’s been a difficult year and another tough decision to hear really.

“But we’ve moved on and we’re now focusing on the next game which is this weekend in the FA Cup and see how far we can get in that competition.

“We started training this week following the rules changing. We couldn’t wait to get back and we were all eager to get going. We’ve got a tough week ahead in terms of training in preparation for the FA Cup, which we all obviously can’t wait to play.”

On being a Wolves Foundation ambassador

“The Foundation supports so many people and they asked me to be an ambassador last year alongside Conor Coady, so the captains of both the women’s and men’s team are going to be ambassadors going forward.

“I was unbelievably proud to be asked to do that, especially coming from Wolverhampton as well, so being able to help, support and promote all the work they do for the groups has been brilliant.

“It’s been hard during Covid to have done as much as I would’ve liked, but I helped with Feed Our Pack, I’ve delivered Zoom sessions to some of the girls football groups, with the Foundation trying to get more girls into sport and keep them active, and I helped at the Molineux sleepout to try and support everyone the best that I could.

“It’s something that’s made me really proud and what they do is unbelievable, the amount of work the Foundation do and the people that they help.”

On getting into football as a child

“I was about eight or nine and at the time there wasn’t many – if any – girl’s teams. I couldn’t join a boy’s team and play because it wasn’t really the thing to do.

“But I went down to a session called Champion Coaching, which was ran by Mark Williams, and that fed into the Wolves set-up.

“If you were good enough, you were then picked up and carried through into the junior set-up of Wolves Women, and I’ve been lucky enough to be part of the club ever since.”

On balancing life as a teacher and Wolves Women captain

“I was a student at Thomas Telford and now I’m teaching there. It’s a good sports school and they were always pushing girl’s football, even when I was there, we always had opportunities to train, play and entered girl’s competitions.

“Sport is at the forefront of the school. We try and push all sports and try to get the kids playing something they enjoy, but football is one of the main sports they do look at as well, so that suits my love and passion.

“It’s busy, but you have to love it to do it. I’m at work from 7.45am until 5.15pm every day and then we have fixtures on top of that. Then it’s training for Wolves on a Tuesday and Thursday nights at the training ground, Friday we have a gym session, and then we play on a Sunday.

“We’ve been fortunate to be able to stop overnight on some of the away games, so we’ve been travelling up on a Saturday, playing on a Sunday, and then coming back and up for work the next day.

“It’s definitely a balancing act, because you’ve got your home life as well to think about. As you get older, you have to think about whether this is what you want to be doing. I can see why some women when they get older and have to balance families, work, children, husbands and wives, football is the thing that falls by the wayside, and I’ve seen that happen a number of times with lots of very talented females.

“You’ve got to love it to do it, but I’d never complain because I’m lucky that I’m still able to play and it’s what I love to do. It is hard sometimes, but you get so much reward which makes it all worth it.”

On the support the women’s team get from Wolves

“The last two to three seasons, it’s been so evident in how much support they’ve given the female footballers within the club.

“Things like training at the Sir Jack Hayward Training Ground where the men train – that never used to happen, we don’t have to pay subs to play anymore, but even clubs in the level above us are having to find money to fund themselves, so we’re very lucky that Wolves do that for us and we don’t have to go looking for sponsorship.

“We’re really grateful and thankful for all the support Wolves have given us and doing things with both myself and Conor shows and gives the statement out there that they really are giving the support to the women’s game.”

Anna was talking to Tim Beech on WCRfm, click here to listen to the full show.

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