Young woman works wonders with soccer ball
Shannon Ghee, a football freestyler, does a handstand while holding the ball on her foot. • Photos Submitted
By Tom Victoria
Shannon Ghee used to kick the ball. Now, she bounces it on a foot while doing a handstand.
She is ranked 2nd in United Kingdom freestyle football.
As a freestyler, Shannon, 18, does numerous tricks with the football (also known as a soccer ball to Yankee plebeians).
Some people call it sport,” she said. “Some classify it as art. I guess it’s a bit of both of them.”
Shannon, who is the 18th freestyler in the world, can spin the ball on a foot. She also can flip while tossing and catching the ball with a foot.
The freestyler enjoys the ability to select her own tricks.
“It gives you an opportunity to express yourself,” she said. “It allows me to pick and choose what I want to do. The element of being able to write up your own training plan, follow it and improve is really rewarding as it’s a great achievement to have done something all on your own accord. My favorite trick is the Jordan stall (named after French freestyler Jordan Meunier). This is where I balance the ball on the sole of my foot while doing a handstand. It took months to learn. I started learning the trick when I had to isolate due to my sister having COVID.”
Freestyle also enables Shannon to work through injuries.
Shannon is ranked 2nd in freestyle in the United Kingdom.
“I like being able to pick when and what to do in my training sessions because of my recent foot injury, too,” she said. “If my foot is feeling sore, I can work on tricks that won’t put extra pressure on my foot and still improve. With a team sport, I would most likely have to sit out of the practice.”
In competitions, freestylers perform against opponents in alternating rounds. Shannon said judges evaluate competitors on the difficulty of the tricks and how smooth they’re executed. If the opponent breaks out a stunt, the other freestyler is pressured to demonstrate a better mastery of that trick.
Shannon is ranked 18th in the world for freestyle.
“You want to prove you can do it even better,” Shannon said. “The Super Ball is the annual world open tournament for football freestyle. It’s held in Prague. Each year, hundreds of freestylers compete for a chance of a world ranking. And lots of different freestyle challenges take place there, too.”
She was destined to be an athlete. At 4, her family tried to get her into traditional Irish dancing instead. She was shown the dress and shoes.
“I looked at them with one eye, thinking are you kidding me,” Shannon said.
After a few lessons, she had her fill of dancing.
“I threw those shoes,” Shannon said.
Football was another story.
“When I was young, I always saw my uncle, who was only in high school at the time, playing football with his friends in the back garden,” Shannon said. “I wanted to join in and I used to play with him and his friends most days after school. After this, I became seemingly obsessed with the sport and loved playing it. When I first went to school, a lot of my friends were playing football at lunch times and as I loved it so much, I would join in, too. I was the only girl on the pitch.”
Eventually playing competitive football, she learned the game required stamina.
“In some games, I ran 10 kilometers,” Shannon said. “I would be so tired.”
Shannon is a former footballer who switched from team sports to freestyle competition.
At the end of her playing years, she also was playing injured for months.
“It was an awful toe injury,” Shannon said. “It was swelling up like a golf ball.”
Doctors could not discern the problem, which turned out to be a septated bone in the foot.
“A specialist finally figured it out,” Shannon said.
She explained some physicians downplayed the issue due to it being categorized a cogenitive issue, or born with it.
Shannon eventually saw some friends doing some tricks on social media.
“I thought I might as well try it,” she said. “I ended up being good at it.”
As time passed, freestyle became increasingly preferable to playing on a football team.
“Players may not be pulling their share,” Shannon explained about a cause of frustration with team competition.
Another issue was practice, where there was little room for advanced players to improve.
“It was about teaching the same thing no matter the level of each player,” she said.
Although Shannon no longer plays football, she still participates in team competition with volleyball.
In addition to athletics, she plays guitar and enjoys reading. Shannon is applying to university for sports health and exercise science as well as sports medicine.
She is glad she pursued freestyle.
“It’s a lot of fun,” Shannon said. “I guess hard work pays. You really can do what you put your mind to.”
The link to Shannon's Instagram is: https://www.instagram.com/shannon.freestyle/
