Flo Lloyd-Hughes

I grew up in west London in a big family. I had three older brothers and later down the line two more half-brothers arrived. It was a big, loud, high-energy household. My family weren’t really a football family, they were all involved in theatre, film and TV. Acting was very much the family business but I fell in love with football at an early age and it quickly became my obsession. It’s all I wanted to do day and night. It even became my identity as my brothers would call me Gaz, after Gary Lineker. I had a subscription to a kids football magazine and I would pore over every page when it arrived. I was obsessed. I collected all the sticker books, played the video games and played football for QPR Girls too.

Football soon became more than just a game I loved, I realized it was an industry I wanted to work in. I studied Sports Management at university and knew football was where I was going to end up somehow. My first job out of university was as a sports journalist covering the sports business industry and I was writing about TV media rights and major events. I knew that what I really wanted to do was write and talk about football. I moved from my journalism job to work for a women’s sport charity and then begun looking for freelance work in football on the side. I was doing podcasts and writing articles for free before finally managing to get some paid radio work and then some paid podcast work and everything started to build.

Just before the pandemic I decided that it was the right time to focus on freelance football work. I went part time at my job but then lockdown came and all football was postponed in England. Eventually, when the football did come back it felt like it was nonstop and I was lucky that it kept me really busy and I was working in an industry that could function during the pandemic. Since then, I’ve focused everything on working in football as a writer, broadcaster and consultant. Football is an amazing sport that unites people all around the world, through joy, heartbreak and hope. I love being able to engage with it every day through my work.