"My body's not going to be the same" - Jones talks to Severn Sport about tough time returning to football following childbirth

Newent Town Women’s Zoe Jones has opened up to Severn Sport regarding how difficult her return to football has been since giving birth to her first child.

Back in January, Jones spoke to us about her return to the game six weeks after giving birth – but after a number of incidents where she has been subject to teasing and name calling about her size, Jones admits she has thought about stepping away from football for good.

Speaking to Severn Sport’s Buttee’s For Breakfast show, Jones talked about how important football was for her prior to and during pregnancy.

“I think I had a what a couple of years off of football. [There were] struggles getting pregnant, having a couple of miscarriages, but falling pregnant with Alfie, having him and I thought maybe this is luck, like maybe I should just go back [to football].

I’d been going to training with Claire [twin sister Claire Turl], even when pregnant and I was just watching and still keeping my foot in there,” said Jones.

“[Football was] so important, even with the miscarriages and stuff, it’s like football’s a place where I literally spend my nights, 90 minutes of not having any worries in the world it’s just me and my teammates playing the game I love just trying to win.

It’s just a massive distraction with what I needed, with life during the miscarriages and stuff it was just a rubbish time and it’s just, yeah, if I didn’t have football I wouldn’t have that distraction from all of the negative stuff I was going through,” Jones added.

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Since Jones made her return to football, she has experienced a number of matches that has seen opposition players make comments about her weight, her size and overall appearance and during the interview, Jones advised it is something happening so frequently that she is starting to go into games expecting it and feels she is letting her team down when she let’s it affect her.

“I tried to ignore it for a good month, I was like ‘okay, I can that,’ but when it’s every Sunday and I get home and I’m like [sighs] when I should be like ‘oh my god, we’ve won!’

We’re all out there to play football and enjoy the game and I don’t know, it’s just my body’s been through a lot since childbirth and it’s just like I’m here to play football and so are you, so I hate it.

It takes away from the team, like we won on Sunday and I felt like I wasn’t there for the team, I just left as soon as the game finished, I didn’t stay with the team and it just made me feel awful about myself, my weight, about everything,” said Jones.

“It’s the bad side of football, I want to call it. I go to training, training’s amazing and we’ve been winning and still, I come home with the feeling like we’ve lost and it’s the comments, the fat comments, the weight comments, the gestures and everything like that.

It’s been like that since I’ve been back at football, I mean my body’s changed for my baby and mentally, for me, I’ve got to understand my body’s not going to be the same, where it was – for me mentally, I’m okay with that because I’ve got my dream,” added Jones.

Jones is in contention to be included in Sunday’s squad for Newent Town Women’s GFA County Cup tie against former side, Gloucester City Women Reserves and looking ahead to Sunday’s game, Jones says she is determined to prove the negative comments wrong on the pitch.

“I want to get back onto the football pitch just to prove that no, I can play football. I’ve just had a baby, I can come back from this, I don’t need all the people giving me all these comments, I just need to prove them wrong.

If I do get picked, as we’ve got a big squad for Sunday, hopefully I can go out there, prove the other people wrong. I just need to keep that mindset, to go out there and prove that you can do it, you can have a good game and you can play football.

I just want to continue to play my football and not worry about it, and I’m hopefully that I can turn around and say ‘yeah, don’t worry, I’m going to smash it!” Jones said.

Newent Town Women host Gloucester City Women Reserves in the GFA Women’s Trophy on Sunday 18 October, kick off 14:00

Listen to Jones’ full interview on this weekend’s Buttee’s For Breakfast show, live on the website from 9am on Saturday morning

Cover photo taken and copyright Jamie Brain Photography. Visit his Instagram @jamiebrain_photography