Pop star Shura is the guest on a very special episode of the Football v Homophobia Podcast, released to mark Lesbian Visibility Week.
When her busy schedule allows, the singer of ‘Touch’ and ‘What’s It Gonna Be?’ – which can be heard on the soundtrack of Netflix smash Heartstopper – trains with Goal Diggers FC, the club for women and non-binary people that was the runner-up in the FvH Women’s Game Award category in 2021.
It was at a Goal Diggers FC session that Shura was snapped planting a kiss on one of our famous FvH rainbow footballs! It’s an image that’s really helped to grow awareness of the campaign and speaking on the pod, she explains how it came about.
“I think that was the first time I had trained with, as I coined them, the ‘gay balls’!
“I was just honestly so thrilled to see it because I’ve been playing football since I was about eight or nine years old, and I played as a kid for Manchester City, so it was kind of just wild to me to think how far things had come, as a queer woman.
“One, they look amazing, and two, I’m just so impressed by how everything’s developed.”
During the conversation with Sports Media LGBT+’s Jon Holmes, Shura tells the story of how she got successfully scouted by Man City, having scored a superb goal in an indoor game.
She also explains why at one stage growing up she actually wanted to be a goalkeeper, and the position she did end up playing for the City youth team.
Shura took a break from playing football for a few years but she says she has fallen back in love with the game thanks to Goal Diggers.
“It’s been genuinely life altering. As a musician, as someone who spends a lot of their time in a box with no windows making music, I don’t get to experience and know a lot about what’s happening in London.
“I was very fortunate to make a few friends who also love football and played there for GDFC who said, ‘you should come, you should train, just turn up!’
“Weirdly, I was really scared because it was the first time maybe since the start of my career that I ever went somewhere where I didn’t know anyone. Even the person who told me to go couldn’t train that day!
“It was like the first day of school but being an adult who’s having that feeling. ‘Is anyone going to like me? Am I even going to be good at football any more?’ There were layers upon layers of social anxiety I had about going.
“But it was just so friendly, so open, all ages, all skill levels, and I just felt very, very welcomed. I don’t go as often as I’d like to now, but there was a period when I went every week and it was literally the highlight of my week.”
Later in the episode, Shura talks about her passion for online gaming and the success of her Twitch and Discord servers through which she has built a community known as Shutopia, with people tuning in from around the world to watch the streams.
She has even cosplayed as the characters Ellie and Joel from one of her favourite games The Last of Us, but she insists she does enjoy football games too.
“I’m more of a Football Manager than a FIFA player,” she says. “I like FIFA, but with FM, I have wasted weeks, months even.
“The save games tell you how many days or weeks you’ve played for. Some saves I’ve played and it’s been like two months of my life spent on FM.
“My favourite thing is scouting for wonderkids, getting a really good scout system and finding bargains.
“Also as a Manchester United fan, it’s been lovely to imagine a world where United have managed to maintain some sort of supremacy post-Fergie!
“I had to uninstall it from my Mac because if I play it, I’d literally never make music again. I go through phases. When I finish my next record, I might give myself another month or two of it.”
Meanwhile, on another episode of the FvH Podcast released to mark Lesbian Visibility Week, sports content broadcaster Becky Taylor-Gill – a Goal Diggers clubmate of Shura’s – and broadcaster Flo Lloyd-Hughes drop by to discuss their Studs and Huns FC channels, which celebrate the sillier side of women’s football.
Becky’s Studs has raised over £1,300 for IraQueer through sales of the ‘They’re lesbians, Stacey’ T-shirt. The collective is teaming up within Flo’s Huns FC for a Euros Queer After Party in Manchester in July, after the England vs Austria tournament opener.
To find and listen to both of the LVW specials of the FvH Podcast, just search ‘Football v Homophobia’ wherever you get your podcasts.
You can also read more about the episodes on the Sports Media LGBT+ website.
Links
Spotify
Apple
Shura on Twitter – https://twitter.com/shura
Shura on Instagram – https://www.instagram.com/shura/
Shura on Facebook – https://www.facebook.com/weareshura
Football v Homophobia – https://www.footballvhomophobia.com/
Sports Media LGBT+ – https://sportsmedialgbt.com/
Lesbian Visibility Week – https://www.lesbianvisibilityweek.com/