Rugby star turned star broadcaster Maggie Alphonsi talks to Julie Nightingale about being the disruptive kid who became a World Cup medal-winning sports star and what it has taught her about leadership, self-confidence and mental strength.

Winning team

Maggie Alphonsi was one of the stars of the 2014 England women’s Rugby World Cup-winning team whose victory in France was a pivotal moment for the game and helped take women’s sport to new audiences and heights. When she retired a year later, aged 32, having represented her country 74 times and being awarded an MBE, she switched to broadcasting, becoming the first female rugby commentator on men’s rugby for ITV and also beginning a new career as a public speaker and ambassador for campaigns on mental health and equality.

It’s a career path that seemed unlikely in the mid-1990s when she was a council estate kid in North London being raised by her Nigerian mum. Born with a club foot that needed major surgery to correct it, she was bright but headstrong. As a disruptive pupil and heading seriously off the rails, she was threatened with expulsion.

“I was intelligent at school but I just didn’t engage in my lessons. I always enjoyed PE but my attitude in other lessons was getting worse and worse. They threatened that, if I didn’t start behaving, they’d take me off all of the sports teams, which was the worst thing they could have done, because I got worse and was almost expelled.”

The turning point was her inspirational PE teacher, who played rugby herself and who suggested the local women’s club might be a good outlet for the teenage Maggie’s drive and energy, as well as leadership potential. “I fell in love with it because it was a sport where you could be aggressive but it was balanced with respect on the pitch for the rules and the players. Without sport, I would probably have continued down a negative path.”

Resetting goals

Looking back now, she sees a lesson in her own experience of how to tackle a wayward child or an underperforming adult that is about focusing on their individual strength or talent to change the game and reset their goals.

“It’s easy to say but even when I’m talking to business leaders I always say, focus on people’s strengths, rather than their weaknesses. I was unengageable until Year 9 when I found the sport but once I found rugby and something that I wholeheartedly believed in doing, then I would do anything the teacher said and didn’t want to disappoint my mum or the teachers who believed in me.”

Maggie’s current role as a sports analyst for ITV and other media places her at the centre of a world where, even though things have changed rapidly in recent years, she remains one of the few black, Asian and minority ethnic (BAME) women in a male-dominated sector.

“One of the things that I’ve noticed quite a lot, and it can be specific to women, is that people who see themselves as ‘the other’ will revert to their weaknesses first, rather than their strengths,” she says. “For example, if you ask how their year is going, the first thing they will point to is ‘Things I need to improve on’. Really, it should be about recognising ‘What are you good at?’”

Positive thinking

Maggie still uses positive affirmations – key words or phrases – that she developed in sport to steel her self-confidence and they are helping in her broadcast career.

“It’s things like, ‘I am knowledgeable, I am articulate, I know my stuff.’ Before I go on air, I might be saying it in my head or I might be walking around saying it out loud to myself – as long as no one’s watching! – but it’s about boosting my confidence. I even feel my body shape change when I feel completely confident in myself.”

While Maggie herself has not experienced racism in the TV world or on the pitch, ingrained sexism is another matter.

“People on the sidelines thought that girls or women playing wasn’t that important so, when I was growing up, we would always get the side or back pitch which had one floodlight or dog mess on it, rather than the main one. It wasn’t people having a go at you because you’re a woman but you just were treated unfairly.

“As I got older, those ignorant comments were still there. In the 2019 World Cup, I had one message on Twitter that said, ‘You should be in the kitchen’.

It is changing and will change more, she says, now that more women are joining the media in on-screen roles and commentating on men’s sports as well as women’s. Visibility is key.

Levelling the field

“When people start to see and hear more from you, they change and start to listen. I don’t want to be in a job because I’m a woman or because of my colour; I want to be there because I’m good and if I’m not then I should go. The challenge we have is that someone may have the skill and the ability but the playing field is not level.”

Through her broadcasting career, Maggie has an additional role as an ambassador for ITV’s mental health campaign that promotes the benefits of taking time out to talk to friends and loved ones and for which she draws on her own experience.

“When I was playing, we had the support of a sports psychologist and I probably used them more than anyone else in the team, sharing frustrations with team members, selection or anything to do with performance. Now, I have a counsellor who I see once a month which I started to do because a lot of things in my life were becoming frustrating and I was getting quite low. We chat, she gives some thoughts, but we come to the solution together.”

Doing it for herself – as a headstrong teenager, as a player and as a pundit – seems to be Maggie’s way. Yet, on the contrary, she says, “The real key to success as a leader, campaigner and advocate for change is about collaboration. Surrounding yourself with a strong team – and being a team player for others – is what inspires people to realise their potential.” “Friends, the counsellor, the PE teacher, the professionals I’ve had as mentors, people in broadcasting now, this is about recruiting the team around me and we all need that network. None of us are superheroes.”

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ASCL Annual Conference

Maggie Alphonsi is a keynote speaker at the ASCL 2020 conference, ICC Birmingham on 13-14 March. Book your place at www.ascl.org.uk/AnnualConference

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“The real key to success as a leader, campaigner and advocate for change is about collaboration. Surrounding yourself with a strong team – and being a team player for others – is what inspires people to realise their potential."

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Julie Nightingale
Freelance Education Writer
@JulieMediumHare

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