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Jill Scott winning I’m A Celebrity was never in doubt... now she owes me a visit in Barcelona!

Jill Scott winning I’m A Celebrity was never in doubt... now she owes me a visit in Barcelona!

At the end of the Euros, when we kind of had the feeling that Jill Scott might retire, a lot of us said to her, “You should go on Dancing On Ice or I’m A Celebrity” — but I only found out she was actually doing it when the news came out!

She’d been texting me after I left Manchester City in the summer, saying she was going to come to Barcelona to visit me. She was going, “Oh, I want to see you, we can go for nice coffee, you can show me around the city”.

The next minute she’s off to the jungle in Australia! I was like, “So, I guess you’re not coming to Barca, then”.

There was never a question of whether Jill would win, because we all knew what kind of person she is, how bubbly a character she is. I think my highlight was actually that first challenge, walking the plank off the edge of a skyscraper — it wasn’t even the challenge itself, it was just seeing her dressed up in the outfit for the first time that made my day.

Having a player like her and a character like her is so important, especially if you’re in a tournament environment like we were for six weeks at the Euros in the summer.

One night she came up with this game where we put everyone’s name in a hat and then you drew out a name and had to pick an outfit for that person, the worst you could find. I think Ella Toone ended up as a lobster, Jill was in grandma clothes. Little things like that help you forget you’re playing football for a little while and bring the team together.

Then, of course, there’s what she’s like on the pitch. I’m sure everyone saw the video of her offering a few, shall we say, choice words to some of the Germany players during the final.

I remember laughing, because she came on and she was saying to everyone, “Right, calm down girls, there’s lots of time left, chill out, let’s keep the ball”.

The next minute she’s kicking everyone, two-footing people, shouting and swearing! I was like, “Jill, you’ve just come on, what are you doing?”!

I played alongside her for about eight years, so when she came on it would always feel really natural. It was massive for the team, massive for me, in those moments, especially in the final — even if we did have to tell her to calm down a little bit afterwards.