When I look back on growing up in Les Ulis, all the kids in our neighbourhood didn’t have many options. Nobody had much money, so the boys and girls had a choice of getting into sport, enrolling at beauty school or getting into the wrong things and finishing up in a bad place. That was pretty much it.
I was very lucky that I had supportive parents who stood squarely behind me. (Literally, actually.)
Right opposite my place we had ‘the pitch’, as it was known in our area. It wasn’t great quality, but at least it was grassy.