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When 18-year-old Arsenal and England left-back Myles Lewis-Skelly walked down the Wales Bonner runway in Paris back in June, he was watched with particular interest by one front row guest – Marcia Lewis, his mum and, as she might put it, his number one fan.
It’s a phrase close to Lewis’s heart. She set up No 1 Fan Club in 2022, an organisation to support parents and help them navigate the world of football. “There’s no one to ask, not everyone has football people in their family, not everyone is on the sideline,” she says, over a Zoom call. “If your kid’s quite good early on, other people come in and try and make decisions for you. Depending on your personality, that can be quite tough. You can’t Google this stuff.”
Lewis is “not a fashionista”, although she looks chic in a printed blouse, with her hair in neat plaits. She is friendly and smiles frequently but she is also unafraid to speak her mind – especially when it comes to how families and football come together. “We’re funnelling a lot of children through the academy system, knowing full well that most will not end up with a career,” she says. “Morally, you should be getting parents on board to properly understand the system.”
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Marcia and Myles Lewis.
Statistics are startling – a study in 2022 showed that 97 per cent of academy players won’t ever play a top flight game. If her son is that unicorn that occupies that three per cent – entering the Arsenal academy at the age of eight and making his first team debut 10 years later – Lewis believes we should be thinking about children’s journeys, rather than the destination. “Why aren't we [telling] the under-eight and -nines this is the reality? So they can just be happy in it, and when it doesn’t happen at the end, life is not going to drop off. You’ve built all this resilience and confidence, and you can appreciate the skills learned along the way.”
Lewis previously worked in the City. As Lewis-Skelly’s prospects in football became more serious, she did a Masters in Football Business in 2022 and gained an agent’s license a year later, to learn more. In the same week that he walked in the Wales Bonner show, the player renewed his contract with Arsenal, much to the relief of fans. The deal was overseen by his mother.
If they are now a formidable double act, getting here wasn’t always easy. “I’m not a perfect parent by any means,” she says. “I remember Myles doing his 11 plus. I was taking him to training, and he had an exam the next day. I was getting him to work out the volume of a cube, and he couldn’t do it… but I’m the parent, I shouldn’t have taken him to training if I was that fussed about it.” Did he pass? “He did,” she smiles. “He got into a lovely school, which I’m very proud of.”
She says parents of girls have an even tougher time. “If you wants to get your daughter into football, it’s a very middle class, white sport. It’s very elitist, in my opinion.” Once there, difficulties continue. The profile of women’s football has skyrocketed, but the disparity remains financially – in 2023, it was estimated that the average salary in the WSL was £47,000, compared to the average Premier League player on £8.2m. While a second Euros win for the Lionesses – and record-breaking deals like Arsenal’s £1m signing of Olivia Smith from Liverpool – Lewis remains cautious. “It’s a really encouraging milestone and shows the positive direction the women’s game is heading in,” she says of the Smith deal. “That said, there’s still some distance to go before the financial side is anywhere near the men’s level.”
No 1 Fan Club is still run by volunteers, and Lewis and head of programme development Kate Iorpenda, but its reach is impressive. In three years, it’s gained over 15,000 followers on Instagram, and this summer they delivered a sold-out conference for parents at Stormzy’s MerkyFC HQ in London, with football royalty Ian Wright attending. They are also now part of the Premier League’s Life Skills programme roster – meaning they will deliver workshops to clubs in the top flight. “I work 18 hours a day on No 1 Fan, it is full on,” she says. “And then I’m a mum. I’ve got a child who I want to nurture and look after and make sure he’s fed and watered.”
Lewis-Skelly is more than fed and watered – he’s thriving. His new Arsenal contract follows a nomination for PFA Young Player of the Year, and the distinction of being the youngest ever England player to score on their debut (he’s also since been nominated for a prestigious Kopa Trophy at the Ballon D’or). Even so, Lewis says football is not the focus when it comes to his success. “It’s not the goals. All of that in the moment is exciting, but actually it’s more about how he’s handling all of it. That’s what I'm proud of. People often comment on how polite and lovely he is.”
The lack of pressure when it comes to performance is a happy side effect of the family’s lack of football knowledge. “Neither me nor Myles’s dad have ever been able to say, ‘You should shot more with your right or your left,’” she says. “It’s, ‘Did you have a good game? Great. What’s for lunch?’” This holistic point of view is the central principle of No 1 Fan Club. “Don’t focus on the end goal,” Lewis says, ever reasonable. “The kid’s 11 – it just doesn’t make any sense.”