Chelsea Fan Corner: Radha Gupta

Radha Gupta has always been a football fan, but her entry into the sport makes for interesting reading. More often than not, it is the men’s game that’s spoken of, but Radha’s love for the game stemmed from the Chelsea Women’s team, unlike the majority of fans across the world.

As part of Chelsea’s Fan Stories project, she narrated her story and started by revealing how she got into women’s football.

“My friends always used to speak about club football, but I was never really interested in it. I used to follow the World Cup, but men’s club football never appealed to me. When I found out about women’s football, all the teams hit me like a big truck.”

Radha didn’t become a Chelsea fan as soon as she started following the women’s game, as she took her time to evaluate all the standout teams across the continent. However, in the 2018-19 season, things changed for the 20-year-old.

“In the 2018-19 UEFA Champions League season, I watched the game between Chelsea and Paris Saint-Germain. I had no idea of the consequences or the magnanimity of the event. The game was heading to penalties, but Karen Carney went down the left side and crossed it. In the last second, Maren Mjelde finished from the right to get a crucial away goal!”

“That completely changed everything for me. The celebrations that we saw after the goal, when the entire bench came out and huddled everyone was when I was completely drawn to the team.”

Radha recently launched her passion project called She Talks Ball. As a youngster, she found it hard to follow women’s football, so the main aim of her project is to make women’s football more accessible to girls from the current generation.

“It took me 15-16 years to find coverage of women’s football and I didn’t want that to happen to anyone coming after me. I didn’t want young girls to wait for many years to think they can actually be footballers, so that’s something I wanted to change.”

Radha is a content creator and spoke about how she could help people through her videos from the comfort of her home.

“I go by 3 C’s - content, coverage and conversation. These are things people could do from home, that is my aim with regard to She Talks Ball. I want to expose women’s football to the mass of football fans.”

Having seen Radha’s passion for the game, Chelsea star Sophie Ingle sent her a heartwarming personal message, as she thanked Radha for her support and wished her well amidst the COVID-19 crisis in India.