Alex Scott returns to Tower Hamlets secondary school to honour coaches who shaped her career

Alex Scott returned to Langdon Park School in Tower Hamlets this week, surprising pupils at the east London secondary school she attended as a teenager and paying tribute to the coaches and teachers who helped set her on the path to becoming one of England’s most capped players.

The former Arsenal and England defender joined a football training session with students and their coach before addressing the group about her own upbringing and career. She spoke about the grassroots figures who encouraged her in her formative years, describing the visit as “a privilege.”

“It’s a privilege to come back to my secondary school, meet Liam and the kids and reflect on some of the key role models I had when I was growing up — which included my junior coaches and teachers when I was here,” Scott said.

The visit coincides with Scott’s announcement as an ambassador for Chase, a football coaching programme that provides fully-funded access to introductory coaching qualifications and professional coaching bursaries for people from low-income backgrounds across England, Northern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. The programme has funded more than 7,000 coaching qualifications to date, with over 5,000 completed since 2024.

YouGov research released alongside the announcement highlighted the outsized influence that role models in sport can have on young people. Four in five young people who look up to someone in sport admire a famous player or athlete, while one in four cite their coach or PE teacher. The research also found that females are almost twice as likely as any other group to say that having more identifiable role models would help them overcome barriers to entering coaching.

Scott also took part in a Q&A with pupils, discussing her journey from playing football locally in east London to the international stage, and sharing lessons drawn from her own mentors along the way.