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Three years ago, and after a decade of taking her sons to play at Guru Nanak FC in Gravesend, Parm Gill decided that she wanted to start up a women’s team.

Fast forward to today and the club now has four thriving girls' teams - an achievement that has seen Parm awarded the prestigious 2018 UEFA Grassroots Gold Award for Best Leader for her dedicated service in trying to give girls and women from the local Sikh community greater opportunities to play and fall in love with football.

“I'm overwhelmed to be nominated for this award,” said Parm. “I really don't know how I've done it! Obviously, the work I do for the club has been recognised, and I am just going to continue in the same way, let it grow as much as possible and go from strength to strength.

“I think it's important to work with Sikh women, because basically, football is a ‘no-no’ [for them] in our culture; it's just for boys or men.

"We have to educate the community first to bring in the Sikh women and the diverse community. I think it's very important for the girls to have female role models to look up to.”

To celebrate the accolade, Parm attended an awards ceremony at UEFA’s headquarters in Nyon, Switzerland to pick up her prize, which was presented to her by UEFA President Aleksander Ceferin.

“I would like to congratulate Parm Gill and Guru Nanak for their fantastic initiatives. They have worked tirelessly to give members of the Sikh community more chances to play football,” said Ceferin.

“Grassroots football is crucial to the well-being of sport and I want to ensure that UEFA continues to work closely with all our member associations to enable everyone to have the opportunity to play and enjoy the sport which we love.”

The UEFA Grassroots Awards have been run annually since 2010, and invite national associations from around Europe to put forward candidates in a number of categories. health.

The criteria behind the Best Leader category, which was won by Parm, looks to find a person who actively works with a club and who has initiated, started or created a club.

Parm, along with the support of Natalie Curtis, an inclusion football development officer for the Kent FA, not only started up the teams, but she is also officially the club’s welfare safeguarding officer, a coach and plays for the women’s team!

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