“Sometimes, you can walk into a coffee shop and people have got faces buried in phones, they don’t even know that someone is sitting on the table next to them.”
But while Jill Scott laments an unfortunate side effect of technology taking over modern society, she’s seen first-hand the positive impact that something as simple as a football sticker can have.
The former Lioness adores that collecting fosters a sense of community between people. In recent times, Scott has been only too happy to see her Manchester coffee shop, Boxx2Boxx, double as a welcoming space where football fans can get together to talk and swap their stickers.
This summer is sure to be no different.
“I love it when people come to the coffee shop and we have sticker albums and swapping,” she tells 90min, as Topps launch the brand new UEFA Women’s Euro 2025 collection.
“You can see these amazing conversations and also a kind of coming together of different types of people. You see kids speaking to people they wouldn’t usually because they have this thing in common. And it’s a little bit of a life lesson: ‘You’ve got some that I need and I can help you,’ interacting because you know you can help each other,” Scott adds.
“It’s a great atmosphere, like ‘I’ve got this one, I’ve got this one!’ Even the shinies as well, ‘Look! I’ve got a shiny, does anyone want to swap this?’ It’s just encouraging a conversation. I just love that you can bring your sticker album along and suddenly you’re part of a community, and you can help other, which is a thing in life we need to do more of, I think.
“Looking at the sticker album that Topps have created, it’s such good quality. I think the important thing about sticker albums, and when I was younger I could only collect the men’s stickers, is through these you can learn about players, their names, and stats. It’s great, especially with the world we’re living in now with a lot of technology, phones and tablets – which is fine, to see kids with something physical, actually putting stickers into a book.”
Scott is among several generations of now grown-up female players and fans for whom men’s football stickers had been the only option. For younger fans, women on stickers has become normal, meeting a growing demand in the cultural space that exists adjacent to the women’s game.
“I hear so many stories from the new generation that are getting into football, but the generation it probably pleases the most is the women who didn’t have that opportunity [to collect women’s football stickers] when they were younger, and now they do,” she explains.
Ultimately, sticker collecting spans the generations, from young kids asking their parents for pocket money, to nostalgic grown adults with disposable income to buy packets of their own. Scott herself, 38 and retired as a footballer for three years, has already been testing out the Euro 2025 collection and freely admits to finding that stickering has a therapeutic quality.
“I’ve sat with this on a night, sometimes, and with work being dead busy, it’s quite nice to relax and it actually does help me,” she offers. “Doing something like that, if I’m feeling a bit anxious, switches my mind off. It also brings up so many childhood memories for me, asking my mam for some money, running to the shop, getting a packet of stickers and looking for your favourite players.”
When it comes to the real stuff out on the pitch in Switzerland this summer, Scott, a European champion with England last time out on the final straight of an era-defining career, has every confidence that her former colleagues can retain the landmark title they won on home soil in 2022.
“Do I believe they can do it? 100%,” she firmly says.
England have also been to a World Cup final since the last Euros. But with a handful of disappointing results in successive UEFA Nations League campaigns, as well as a far from perfect Euros qualifying run, there is no doubt it will be tough – not least because there isn’t time to bed in.
“The way I see it, when you’re in a tournament – I was fortunate to play four Women’s Euros, you’re trying in the group stage to get momentum for the knockouts,” Scott explains.
“But I think because of how difficult the group is – Netherlands, France, Wales – England have to hit the ground running. And the thing is, because they won the last one, there’s always a little bit more of a target on your back, people see playing against England, the champions, as their cup final.”
Even with some criticism in recent months, Scott believes a “fantastic” squad – many of whom were there in 2022 – will rise to the occasion when it really counts.
“There’s always a bit of a drop off point. It’s so hard in sport to keep going and going, hitting those levels all the time,” she says. “But the win at Wembley against Spain [in February], that was definitely a sign that the Lionesses are back.
“This is the standard we expected every time they step onto the pitch. I think the target on their back probably will be the biggest [challenge], but the girls are so good and mentally very strong. I know they’ll take each game as it comes and Sarina [Wiegman] is so good at blocking out the outside noise, the emotion. That’s why she’s one of, if not the best, women’s manager in the world.
“The big players step up in the big moments and England have a lot of them. Leah Williamson, Lucy Bronze, Millie Bright, those are the players that thrive in these occasions. They probably are a ‘tournament team’ and I think you’ll see that again.”
With the likes of Ella Toone and Alessia Russo making a name for themselves in 2022 as new and emerging players, regularly changing games from the bench, Scott names Manchester United’s Grace Clinton, nine caps at present, as her pick to be England’s next tournament breakout star this summer.
“Grace Clinton is someone who excites me,” she says.
“Everybody always looks at flair and goals, but what I see from Grace is the one tracking all the way back, putting in tackles, and scoring quite a lot of goals with her head. For me, she is that all-round midfield player. Yes, she needs a little bit more experience, but you’re only going to get that if someone gives you the opportunity.”
