Megan Campbell: 'It's going to be phenomenal for us as a team and the next generation'

London City Lionesses defender Megan Campbell is excited for a start of a new era for the Pride.

Speaking live on BBC Radio London on Friday [28 June], the Republic of Ireland defender is keen to hit the ground running with preseason starting on 1 July.

Megan Campbell, London City Lionesses (Image: Wing Chong)

Here is every word Campbell said, following an exciting week for everyone in blue.

This is a really exciting time for London City Lionesses. The Club’s had various different announcements recently, are you guys excited, what's the mood like at the Club?

Definitely, it shows Michele’s intent, taking over as the owner and really displaying what she wants to achieve within London City, but also as an overall picture of where she wants women’s football to go. 

It’s fantastic to be a part of the project. For her to jump in and make the four massive announcements yesterday was fantastic for us as players and staff. Ultimately, this is where you want your team to be, it’s the background you want to have behind you, pushing you forward, so we’re really excited for what's to come. 

Preseason starts Monday morning, so the mood is normally not great when you’re going back in for preseason – the hard graph starts – but for us it's really exciting and we’re looking forward to it.

Just to have an owner that is dedicated to growing your club and improving the women’s game, how exciting and promising is that for you?

It wasn’t just a case of her coming onboard in December. We had obviously met Michele when she came to the Club, she spoke about her project and her long term plan – taking over Lyon [Women] and Washington Spirit previous to us – but it’s hard to see those things until they’re actually over the line. 

These things have been happening throughout the last number of weeks and months, it’s been going on in the background and then we found out yesterday. It’s fantastic to see where Michele’s ambitions are going and the infrastructure behind that. 

But it’s also massive for us as players to know that you have someone leading the way in women’s football, and wanting to change the culture, the thought process and ultimately the legacy of London City and women’s football as a whole.

You finished 8th in the Championship last season. With all this investment, you’ll be expected to be pushing for promotion this year. Are you ready for that?

We’re not naive, we know that the league is getting harder and harder year on year, and it’s going to be a challenge regardless of the investments because other clubs are also investing. But for us as players and professional footballers, you thrive in situations like that, and you want to play football for these moments, for the pressured environments and situations.

I have no doubt that the players that the club will bring in – and the players that we currently have still – that we’re going to be really looking forward to the season and pushing to get promotion and go home with silverware, going up into the WSL. 

I think that's a challenge and an expectation that we’re going to put on ourselves as a club. Ultimately Michele has come in and told us her plans and her ambitions too, so there is that pressure behind us, but that's where we wanna thrive.

To be an independent team, is that something that's important to this project? 

Yeah, I think it’s also amazing when you have men’s clubs that are willing to jump onboard and put the funding and financial stability in women’s football as well because ultimately that is what football needs. From our side, being female-only and the focus being just on the women’s team and the academy, and the production of young players coming through the system as well as how we can we best help the next generation of footballers, I think it’s fantastic to see that the decision was made to buy the 23 acres of land. It is going to be phenomenal for us as a team but also for the next generation that comes through after us. 

To show that it’s not just here for the short term and a quick fix, but that we’re here to change the thought process behind women’s football in that area and hopefully others jump on board with that, wanting to do the same thing, and then ultimately there will be more women’s only clubs soon.