WSunday’s Women’s FA Cup Final assistant referee Sophie Dennington heard a mobile phone ringing during a strength training and conditioning session and became interested, but ignored it. Once completed, she found her three missed calls from her mother Shelly in her notifications and called them immediately.
“She says, ‘Soph, I posted something on Facebook. It’s just a small grassroots page. I’ve seen a lot of kids posting that they’re judges and starting their GCSEs. Posts usually get 3-4 likes. All I wanted to do was post about you struggling with her GCSEs to show that anything is possible and just keep moving forward. I never expected to get so many likes so quickly,” says Dennington. She said her goodbye, turned off her cell phone and went to work. After she finished, she turned on her phone and saw her post and her 1.1 million views.
A message from a grassroots Facebook group said: “This is my daughter, Sophie Dennington, and I’m so proud of her. She started riffing at the age of 15. She struggled so much in school that by the age of 13 she couldn’t read, write, or spell. She was as old as a seven-year-old. With the help of her school, she managed to pass her GCSEs. She was diagnosed with dyslexia, but still achieved her dream. I’m running! This is my message to all young referees: If you put your heart into something, you can do it!”
It was a lovely and touching message, but it brought Dennington to tears. “She said so [at 13] My spelling and reading age was seven years old,” she says. “I was embarrassed and started crying, but then I started reading the responses and saw how it was connecting with people, and I thought, ‘Oh, okay, I’m the only one who went through that. Instead, you’re actually helping and supporting people.” I’ve never seen anything like that before. I forget to put myself in someone else’s shoes…I want to do media. It wasn’t, but it had such a positive impact on the media and people were responding so well that I thought I just wanted to come here and say, “I was 7 years old when I could read and write.” But now I have a degree. That doesn’t hold me back.”
Her school expelled her before she was diagnosed with dyslexia and told her not to worry about sixth form universities because she wouldn’t get the grades. She said, “I took that and thought, ‘Who are you to tell me what I’m going to do with my life?'” She used that as motivation. You’re not going to stop me from getting what I want. Year 8 and her 9th year in English she couldn’t write half a page, but she wrote a 10,000 word paper, which was 2 marks better than her first paper. ”
Her diagnosis also changed the way her family viewed her. “I was diagnosed when I was eight years old, and my family was like, ‘You’re not just being lazy.’ My uncle would have said, ‘Just read it out loud, just read it out loud.’ I would say. And I said, “I can’t because the words don’t match what I’m thinking in my head.” Then this happened. This is why my brain isn’t working. I think I felt a little bad because my family was trying to push me into a corner but didn’t know how to support me in the right way. ”
Dennington will be appearing in the Women’s FA Cup final for the second consecutive season. Last year, she was there as a reserve officer. This year she will carry her flag when Manchester United take on Tottenham. This year has been a landmark year, with the 23-year-old becoming one of five new officials from England to be added to FIFA’s international list as assistant referees in 2024.
Her officiating journey began when she joked with an umpire at a school match. “He said I could be a better referee than him. He wasn’t moving around as much on the pitch because he was older.” Her physical education teacher told her she should give it a try. However, her mother could not afford to pay for the course. “So my PE teacher sat down with the principal and said, ‘Look, I think we should pay for Sophie.’ Do we have the budget? And my principal said, ‘Look, I think we should pay for Sophie.’ “We pay her money, but she can repay us by refereeing the boys after school,” she joked, and the referee became her mentor and offered advice. or go to a game.
When she was invited to travel abroad for the first time, she had to make a big decision. It was whether to quit her job at Tesco, where she was denied time off, and whether to give up her ambitions to become a detective and work with people from her past. She was sexually assaulted because her training did not allow her to take time off.
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“My dad said, ‘Yeah, quit Tesco and you can put off calling the police.’ The police will always be there.” …I haven’t looked back.
Dennington became emotional when asked what message she would give to her 13-year-old self and the children watching over her on Sunday.
“I would say, ‘Don’t be so hard on yourself.’ I would go home and cry, and I would cry during lessons. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t like everyone else.” You’ll look at someone and think, “Why not me?” Why am I struggling? I was never good at anything. My escape was PE, but since I wasn’t good at it, I just felt free.
“As an individual, you’re going to be good at something. All you have to do is find what you’re good at. And now that I think about it, my message is, stop comparing yourself to others. I think it’s because you are who you are.”
