Former Lionesses star Jill Scott joined comedian Katherine Ryan for an edition of her podcast. What’s My Age Again?
Katherine Ryan and Jill Scott on not letting partying get in the way of reaching their goals: “I really looked after myself because I knew I had to do that to play for England”
KATHERINE RYAN: Would you have been like your classic northern party girl in your youth?
Jill Scott: No, definitely not. I tried to do it when I was like 18, 19. I did the whole Mgaluf thing and everything else and I really didn’t like it.
There were like the parties start at 4am and I was like, 4am? How do you stay awake till 4am? So we’ll go to this, go to this party. And it was meant to be one of these big foam parties and a tannoy comes over the room. “We’ve run out of foam” so they’re just spraying us with cold water while we’re drinking at 4:00 in the morning. And I just wanted to be in bed. So, I’m not a party animal at all. Are you a party animal?
KATHERINE RYAN: Never was. Just like you. I was not into it really. I tried a few times when I was young, but it’s same kind of story.
Like everyone else seemed to have a lot more stamina for that kind of thing. I think you and I maybe had higher standards. I don’t want to be sprayed with cold water at 4am Like I know that I’m born better. So presumably like today you were coming to see me. I’m sure you’ve got meetings later in the day.
Jill Scott: Yeah.
KATHERINE RYAN: Things in your life as a high-performance woman that are standing in your way of getting wasted on a Sunday evening.
Jill Scott: Yeah. And you know what? It was one of them. Like I don’t say this for people to say anything different, but I was a very average footballer. I just worked hard. I didn’t drink hardly. I really looked after myself because I knew I had to do that to play for England and stuff like that. But now I definitely like the odd glass of red wine.
Jill Scott broke rules to take up rollerblading during lockdown: “I was 35, 34, rollerblading around the street. I think the neighbors must think I’m actually crazy”
KATHERINE RYAN: The rollerblading must make you feel young.
Jill Scott: Yes, I love rollerblading.
KATHERINE RYAN: I love that you look like Bart Simpson going up and down.
Jill Scott: I can’t see myself though, at 91 on rollerblades […] in lockdown, I spoke about it. Obviously, football was taken away from us a little bit in terms of playing games and matches. And I thought, you know what? I’ve never been allowed to rollerblade because you have to sign a contract where you can’t go skiing, can’t go on rollerblades because you’ve got to look after your knees. But I did break that in lockdown. Bought myself some rollerblades. I was 35, 34, rollerblading around the street. I think the neighbors must think I’m actually crazy.
KATHERINE RYAN: No, I think it’s cool. What else were you gonna do in lockdown?
Jill Scott: I know.
Katherine Ryan found cryotherapy ‘hard’: “I had to relinquish my Canadian citizenship after that”
JILL SCOTT: Can you remember when we put you in cryotherapy chamber, which is like, what is it, minus 50 degrees or something like that? How did you find it?
KATHERINE RYAN: I had to relinquish my Canadian citizenship after that. They were like, “you don’t like being cold?” It was hard for me.
JILL SCOTT: Yeah. But that’s what we used to do for recovery. So, after a game we would go in this chamber and it almost like freezes your body. But I have had kind of a bad back and a bad neck heading the ball a lot.
KATHERINE RYAN: But you should probably go and see someone who works in backs and necks and stuff like that maybe once a week to keep on top of it.
Jill Scott: But I get to the point where I can’t move and then I make an emergency appointment.
KATHERINE RYAN: I feel like, especially in retirement.
Jill Scott: Yeah.
KATHERINE RYAN: I don’t think you’ve really understood the definition of retirement. I think that’s what I’m noticing is that you’re everywhere, you’re working harder than ever. But I think you’re supposed to be treating yourself. You should be having weekly massages.
Jill Scott had to choose between football and running after contracting glandular fever as a teenager: “I remember being on the setee for about a month. I hated my life. Hated it.”
Jill Scott: My earliest memories of football was just kicking a ball around with boys mainly. But then I got into running as well and then I got to a point, I think I was 14, where I had to choose which one to do because I suffered with glandular fever. But I think it was just that everyone said it was a kissing disease, but I didn’t even have time to kiss people. I was running, I was playing football and I think I was just doing too much. And it got to the point where it was like, you can’t take both these sports as seriously as you are because you’re training twice a day, and I had to choose one.
KATHERINE RYAN: And so you’ve always been like this, […] always doing as much as you could. Packing it all into one day.
Jill Scott: Yeah.
KATHERINE RYAN: To the point of getting glandular fever.
Jill Scott: Yeah. Like, when I was 14, I remember having, like, a cross country national, like, run, like, a race on the morning and then playing in a cup final on the afternoon. So I was definitely doing too much.
KATHERINE RYAN: And we call that mono in Canada, the glandular fever. […] You have to use simple words with us. All I know about mono is girls who got it at my school, we didn’t see them for, like, a month.
Jill Scott: Yeah.
KATHERINE RYAN: You’d be exhausted. Yeah, it’s kind of like Lyme disease. Some people would never recover fully from that. So, what did your time out look like?
Jill Scott: I remember just being stuck on the setee. I think it can even affect you for, six months, seven months. But I did get rushed into hospital. I was put on penicillin. So, yeah, I remember being on the setee for about a month. I hated my life. Hated it.
Jill Scott on being told she couldn’t play football anymore as a child because of her gender: “My mum told us to do netball, but I didn’t. I just wanted to play football”
KATHERINE RYAN: And where did all these boys come from? Just. Did you have siblings? Just boys in the neighborhood you wanted to play football with?
Jill Scott: So my brother, he used to let us go and play football with him. […]I was with him yesterday, I said to him, thank you for letting us play football with you, because he was probably about 10 and I was 6, and it mustn’t have been cool to take your little sister. I think he used to just put us in goal. But I was thankful that he let us play with, like, him and his mates. And then, yeah, just local teams, but it was always boys that were playing. And then as I got older, I found a girls team. And I think that was when I found my real sense of belonging. I was like 10, 11 years old, and I was like, wow, there’s other people like me. Whereas up until that point, I thought, am I the only girl that likes football? So, yeah, my love of football got us through my childhood.
KATHERINE RYAN: And were girls allowed to play in school at that time?
Jill Scott: No. I remember hitting 8, 9 years old, and I was playing for a boys team, and the coach took us to one side, and it was my life. I absolutely loved it. And they just said, look, Jill, girls can’t play anymore in this league. It’s only boys. And I went home crying my eyes out. I was so gutted. My mum told us to do netball, but I didn’t. I just wanted to play football. Them kind of opportunities shouldn’t be taken away from you unless you choose to make that decision. But it’s good. Times are changing for women’s football, especially in England, and that’s what makes us happy.
KATHERINE RYAN: Especially when there’s no alternative, though, when they just send you home, they go, sorry, Jill, it’s netball.
Jill Scott: I remember that day so vividly. This is going to sound so mad, but, you know, certain parts of your career, I remember my mom must have been like, cooking, fish or something in the house. I just walk in, whenever I think about that decision, I just think about fish, which is so random. But the house must have just stunk. But yeah. So not only was I gutted, but I also probably left the house smelling the fish as well. So, it wasn’t a very good day that day.
Jill Scott ‘fell out of love’ with football towards her retirement, however winning the Euros gave her a ‘good ending’: “my last two years, I wasn’t really enjoying it. And then I’d have some good moments.”
KATHERINE RYAN: It sounds so young to retire at 35.
Jill Scott: Yeah.
KATHERINE RYAN: But in a sports context, I guess not. Was there a moment that you knew, all right, this is the end of the road?
Jill Scott: I always describe it as, you know when you have a breakup, and you have them breakups where something happens and it’s like a sudden breakup, but then you also have them ones where you’re not sure for a year, two years, and you’re kind of like gradually breaking up. And I feel like that’s how I describe my retirement football. So my last two years, I wasn’t really enjoying it. And then I’d have some good moments, and I’d think, oh, I still kind of want to be playing. And then there was an Olympics and a Euros to aim for. And in my head I was like, I really want to go to them tournaments. I knew the team were absolutely flying. I knew we were going to win the Euros kind of the year before.
I was like, this team will win the Euros. […] And I knew I had to be there. I was like, this has to be my ending. So I didn’t really think it was a weird one, but I think I kind of fell out of love with it a little bit in my head. Club football wasn’t going very well. I had a particular manager at the time. We weren’t really getting on, but I found a way through it. I went on loan for two seasons, found my love for the game a little bit more and managed to make that Euro was. Yeah, yeah. So, it was a good ending.
Katherine Ryan describes Jimmy Carr as ‘my Roy Keane’, whilst Jill Scott discusses being on ‘League of Their Own’ with him: “he just hammered me and I was like, oh, my God.”
KATHERINE RYAN: Do you know what I love about Jimmy Carr, who’s my Roy Keane, is that when we’re walking along in public, if people ask him for a photo, he’s very friendly. Yep, yep. […] But he doesn’t stop walking. He doesn’t even slow down, really.
Jill Scott: So he’s like, come along.
KATHERINE RYAN: So the people have to keep up.
Jill Scott: Run after him, take the photo.
KATHERINE RYAN: It’s a bit blurry. Cause we’re on the move, but Jimmy Carr on the move.
Jill Scott: You know my first episode of the League of their Own.
KATHERINE RYAN: Yeah.
Jill Scott: And obviously I’d never been in that world. I was like, why have I even being chosen to do this? And it was a live show in terms of the audience being there. And he just hammered me and I was like, oh, my God. But it was good for us because I was like, I don’t think you’re going to get anyone as kind of quick fire as Jimmy. So it was like surviva mode, and I got through it. Just.
Jill Scott, Katherine Ryan and Doctor Nicola Conlan discuss Jill’s ‘surprising’ biological age of 50: “Does that mean I’m gonna die young?”
KATHERINE RYAN: Would you prefer if it was read by a doctor?
Jill Scott: No, you go on. I trust you.
KATHERINE RYAN: Okay. Jill Scott. Oh. Your result is 50 years old. That’s 12 years older than your chronological age.
Jill Scott: That’s so bad.
KATHERINE RYAN: It’s very surprising to me.
Jill Scott: That is very surprising. Okay. But maybe I stress that day we did [the blood test].
KATHERINE RYAN: Well, Nicola, I’m gonna pass this right over to you because I’m shocked. Could it be impacted by too much sport, too much stress, too much, too much of too much.
Jill Scott: Does that mean I’m gonna die young?
KATHERINE RYAN: No, because biological age is reversible.
Dr. Nicola Conlon: So it is the one thing that you can absolutely reverse. But I guess the first thing to say is I, I really wasn’t surprised by this.
Jill Scott: Oh, really?
Dr. Nicola Conlon: No, I wasn’t surprised because this is really typical of what we see in elite athletes. This is actually really typical. So, there have been studies done looking at, you know, just a person that does an average amount of exercise versus someone who would be considered elite. Somebody that is training every single day, maybe even multiple times a day.
With very limited recovery in between. And we see that they are biologically older. And the interesting thing is, usually exercise goes the opposite way, so it would make you biologically younger. So we see in people that do moderate exercise, they actually have a better biological age.
But as with anything in the body, it’s all about balance. So people that are exercising at such an extreme level, you actually see it go the opposite way. And to be fair, you’ve had decades of intense exercise. Even before football, you know, doing running at county level, you were obviously training to a really high level from a very young age. And when you do a lot of intense exercise, it actually creates a bit of oxidative stress in the body. Now, at lower levels, the oxidative stress is actually really healthy for the body because it switches on repair processes and it, it triggers your body and actually repairing, but to the opposite end, where you don’t actually give the body enough time to recover. And you’re just at a high level oxidative stress all the time, you actually get chronic inflammation in the body. And this actually damages our cells.