I Met Jill Scott. Here's What We Talked About: Why Are Fuelling and Injuries Still So Common in Football?

I met Jill Scott recently.

And naturally, we ended up talking about something I've become increasingly passionate about:

fuelling.

Not just what athletes eat.

But whether we're actually giving athletes enough energy to do what we're asking their bodies to do.

Because when you look at football and sport more broadly, there are so many conversations about injuries.

Hamstrings.

ACLs.

Muscle injuries.

Stress injuries.

Fatigue.

Recovery.

Players being unavailable.

Players coming back too soon.

And yet I think we sometimes miss one of the most basic parts of the picture:

Are athletes actually fuelling enough for the work they're doing?

This is the conversation I wanted to have

I've spent a huge part of my own life thinking about this.

I was a national-level track athlete.

I trained hard.

I wanted to be good.

I thought working harder was the answer.

More training.

More commitment.

More discipline.

What I didn't understand at the time was that training is only one part of the equation.

Your body needs the resources to actually adapt to that training.

And that includes energy.

Food isn't just something you have after training.

It isn't a reward.

It isn't something you need to earn by doing enough exercise.

It's part of the input required to support the output you're asking from your body.

And football is a perfect example

Footballers aren't just playing a 90-minute game.

They're training throughout the week.

They're travelling.

They're lifting.

They're sprinting.

They're changing direction.

They're doing repeated high-intensity efforts.

They're recovering from previous sessions while preparing for the next one.

And then there's everything outside football.

Sleep.

Travel.

Life.

Stress.

Illness.

Injuries.

All of it adds to the picture.

So when we talk about injury prevention, I think we have to look beyond the obvious.

Strength matters.

Conditioning matters.

Load management matters.

Technique matters.

Recovery matters.

But fuelling matters too.

Because your body can't build something from nothing

This is something I've learned the hard way.

If you're consistently asking your body to do more work than you're giving it energy to support, eventually something has to give.

That doesn't mean under-fuelling automatically causes every injury.

It doesn't.

Injuries are complex.

But inadequate energy availability can affect a range of processes involved in health, recovery and adaptation.

And that's why I think fuelling deserves to be part of the injury conversation.

Not as the only answer.

But as part of the answer.

And this isn't just about elite football

This is where the conversation gets even more interesting to me.

Because we often assume sports nutrition is something for professionals.

The footballer with a nutritionist.

The Olympian with a performance team.

The athlete with a sponsorship deal.

But if anything, elite sport shows us how important fuelling can be.

And you don't have to be elite to need it.

You might play football twice a week.

You might train after work.

You might be playing Sunday league.

You might be a teenager going through a huge amount of physical development while also training.

You might be juggling sport with university.

You might be working shifts.

You might be doing three sessions a week and wondering why you're constantly exhausted.

Your body still needs energy.

One of the biggest misconceptions about fuelling

I think we've made sports nutrition far too complicated.

We talk about supplements.

Timing.

Macros.

Recovery products.

Performance hacks.

Marginal gains.

And sometimes we forget the most basic question:

Are you eating enough?

Not:

Are you eating perfectly?

Are you taking the right supplement?

Are you hitting every macro?

Are you eating “clean”?

Just:

Are you giving your body enough energy for what you're asking it to do?

Because you can have the perfect training programme and still be under-fuelled.

You can have the best kit.

The best shoes.

The best coach.

The best recovery routine.

And still not be giving your body enough to work with.

This is why I care so much about making fuel practical

When I created RED-Scue, I wasn't trying to create another product that told athletes what they were doing wrong.

I wanted to create something that made fuelling easier.

Something you actually wanted to eat.

Something you could take before training.

During longer sessions.

After training.

Something that didn't have to look like a traditional sports product.

Because sometimes the barrier isn't that someone doesn't know food is important.

It's that they don't have the appetite.

They're rushing.

They're travelling.

They're going straight from work to training.

They're tired.

They don't know what to take.

They don't want another gel.

They don't want another banana.

They don't want to wait until they get home.

They need something practical.

And I think that's a huge part of the conversation we're still missing.

So when I met Jill...

What stuck with me wasn't just that I was meeting someone who has played at the very highest level.

It was the fact that these conversations about fuelling, injury, recovery and longevity are bigger than one athlete or one sport.

They're about how we think about athletes.

Do we see food as part of performance?

Do we see recovery as part of training?

Do we understand that the body needs energy to repair itself?

Do we teach young athletes that eating enough is part of being an athlete?

Do we make it easier for athletes to fuel consistently?

Or do we keep asking them to push harder and somehow do more with less?

Maybe injury prevention needs a bigger conversation

I'm not saying:

“Fuel properly and you won't get injured.”

Sport doesn't work like that.

But I do think we need to stop treating fuelling as an optional extra.

Because athletes aren't machines.

They are human bodies doing an enormous amount of work.

And if we're serious about performance, recovery and keeping people in the sport they love for longer, then we need to think about the whole picture.

Training.

Recovery.

Sleep.

Strength.

Mental wellbeing.

And food.

Especially food.

Because sometimes the thing an athlete needs isn't another session.

It isn't another supplement.

It isn't another marginal gain.

Sometimes they need to eat.

And sometimes the most important question we can ask an athlete isn't:

“How hard can you push?”

It's:

“How well are we supporting you while you do it?”

That's the conversation I want to keep having.

With athletes.

With coaches.

With parents.

With clubs.

With schools.

With football.

And with anyone who asks their body to do more.

Because fuel isn't a reward for performance.

Fuel is part of what makes performance possible.

And if we want athletes to stay in the sport they love for life, we have to start treating it that way.

Fuel Without Fear.