Amanda, aka @GoonerGirl1969, was born an Arsenal fan. “I have been going to matches since I was four years old. It was like being born into a religion,” she says.
Essex born and bred, she recalls how her father, a life-long Gooner, would boast to his friends that his daughter could name the entire 1970-1 squad (who went on to win the FA Cup and league double) when she was just a toddler.
She laughs, “I was only three years old at the time – I doubt I could actually speak.”
Amanda spent her teenage years fending off invitations to go on dates on Saturday afternoons. “They were entirely reserved for football,” she says.
And dubs the 1989 championship decider between Arsenal and Liverpool “the best night of [her] life.”
The Gooner, from Barkingside, lived and breathed Arsenal. Yet, she recalls, when looking back at that famous 2-0 win, she doesn’t “remember seeing many women at Anfield that day,” she says.
But in 2012, Amanda’s way of engaging with football completely changed.
A friend said that she should create a Twitter account, saying there were lots of football fans using the platform.
“First, I had no clue what to do with it, but soon I was obsessed. I began tweeting about what I knew well: football, sarcasm, TV,” she says.
Amanda’s @GoonerGirl1969 account quickly amassed an impressive audience and now has almost 25,000 followers. She began to get noticed in the football community and was invited to speak on various podcasts and football shows.
Social media changed everything for Amanda.
“Before that, I just went to football matches with my friends and then went home,” she says. “Now I can connect with hundreds of other fans on a daily basis. It is a completely new experience.”
But soon it became clear that Amanda had more to offer.
“Some people on other Arsenal podcasts didn’t even know who the current Tottenham manager was,” she says. So she teamed up with Los Angeles-based sports journalist Sophie Nicolaou and two others to set up a female-driven Arsenal podcast in 2017.
In 2018 it became known as the Highbury Squad podcast, featuring Sophie and Amanda as co-hosts.
Arsenal legend Lee Dixon, comedian Matt Lucas, and BBC football presenter Gary Lineker have all been featured, and ex-Arsenal star Kevin Campbell has been a regular guest since August 2018.
“We’re not idiots. We talk football – and people love coming on our show,” she says.
“We have fans from across the world who have featured as guests, some from as far away as Venezuela.”
While the world of football may be dominated by men, both on and off the pitch, Amanda stressed that she “does not see herself as a female fan”.
“I’m just a Gooner. Where I grew up, people didn’t speak to me as ‘the token woman’, they spoke to me as an Arsenal fan who knew her shit,” she says.
This is a notion she wants to see applied to women in sport more broadly.
“We need to stop calling people ‘brilliant for a woman,’” she says. “The media always refer to Alex Scott (ex-Arsenal and England international) as ‘amazing for a woman.’ But nobody ever dreams of saying ‘Gary Lineker is great, for a man.’ So why do the media always apply this double standard?”
“I think the BBC and ITV are missing a trick,” she says. “If they want more women to watch and play sport, they should get more women on their shows. There are millions of women who love football and who are clearly knowledgeable – why don’t they bring them in?”
Amanda is infectiously positive and clearly knows her stuff. While any online presence comes with the risk of abuse, of which she has received more than her fair share, she says she is not intimidated.
“Real men wouldn’t be bothered by the fact that I’m a woman and can talk about football. And if someone does go on the attack and say something like ‘Get back into the kitchen’, I won’t retaliate. Sarcasm will do,” she says.
“You obviously don’t know what to do in the bedroom, is one of my favourite responses,” she says through a giggle.
Asked about her hopes for the podcast’s future, she says: “Obviously it would be great if someone sponsored us so we could expand our audience because at the moment we don’t earn a penny.”
Amanda works alongside producing the podcast and records Highbury Squad with Sophie and her guests over Skype from her kitchen. She adds: “Quite frankly, I don’t have any idea how many people regularly tune in – we don’t do it for the numbers, we do it because we love football and talking about it.”
When asked about her expectations for the remainder of the league, she says, “Back in July or August last year I said we’d end up in the top four and with a cup. It’s March, and we can still do that,” she says before pausing. “I think Emery has done a great job with what’s been handed to him, and I have nothing but praise. And although we have a very busy match schedule coming up, we can still win the Europa league and get into the top four.”
She quickly adds, “Hopefully we’ll come third, so then we will have beaten Tottenham. That’s always good.”
