More on KentOnline
More on KentOnline
"My husband always tells people I never knew a football was round until I moved down to London!"
Denise Richmond admits football wasn't her first love and Kent wasn't her home county but the 2020/21 season is getting underway with her sitting as the head of the Kent County Football Association - the first woman to hold the post.
Ms Richmond was elected to the position of Kent FA chair a month ago - a promotion earned after three decades of service to the sport that had become ingrained in her life.
It was motorsport that took preference in her family when growing up, however, living just outside Chesterfield. Life changed when she moved south in 1984 to work as a nurse at Brook Hospital, Shooters Hill in southeast London.
She married Douglas, who had played for Carshalton and Dulwich Hamlet, and he introduced her to the football life, which meant Saturday afternoons watching Greenwich Borough. It was the start of her football journey.
A change of career saw her move into marketing and analysis and customer service. She currently works as a marketing director for Dennis Publishing alongside her football commitments. She remains chair of the Southern Counties East Football League.
She recalls those early years, saying: "The Greenwich secretary stepped down and they couldn't find anyone else to do it. They basically said to me, 'you can do this, you will be fine, it won't take up too much of your time'. You never envisage from that point this is where you would be.
"Things just grow and evolve and chop and change but I never would have envisaged it, that's for sure.
"Between myself and Douglas we live, breath, eat and sleep football, but he very much looks at it from the playing side.
"I do watch a game most Saturday afternoons, but I don't look at it the same way because I have never played it. If someone starts being clever and asks questions I just say, 'I don't need to know that, that's not my job.'"
Since her role at Greenwich she got involved in the management committee at what was then the Kent League, becoming vice chair in 2000. She's been chair of what is now the Southern Counties East Football League for 18 years, since 2002.
"It's just the start now really, isn't it?" she said, having been elected to the top job in Kent.
"What's gone before is what's gone before but Kent has a reputation for being quite progressive and you want to continue that and if you can speed anything up then you want to do that too.
"I feel that with the SCEFL role, whilst I have been there we have done a lot. We have built a relationship with the Kent County League, we have developed step six, we have had big changes, we have become a limited company, while that evolution and change is still happening, you still feel you are adding value.
"I feel like that with the Kent FA. Having been through some of that on a smaller scale, there is an opportunity to bring through change and development. It's not that people before haven't done that but you can build on it, can't you?"
Becoming the first female in the role is one she is proud of but she says: "I care, I am very proud of it, but that is not why I did it. I don't want to be seen as that token woman doing a job.
"I believe I am the right person for this job at this time and the fact that I am a woman is a bonus because it gets us good press!
"In football I get elected because I know what I am talking about. There are 17 leagues at step five and six and while I am outspoken and vocal, it is in a constructive way.
"I like the fact that you can do it as a woman, you can be involved in football without having played football. If there is anything that I am proud of, it is about making girls of today and women think, 'I can do that, I can be involved in football, I don't have to be a good player, I don't have to play, but I can do other things that make football happen.'"
