It’s fair to say that ‘beautiful’ might be Lotte Wubben-Moy’s favourite word; it’s one she repeats again and again throughout our conversation. She uses it when describing her childhood playing football on the street, when reflecting on what it’s been like introducing young girls to the game, and especially when talking about the importance of exploring your creative side. You get the sense that she is someone with an enormous capacity for positivity, for seeing the good – and the beautiful – in everything.
It’s no surprise, then, to discover that Wubben-Moy comes from a very creative family background. Her mother works as a seamstress, while her father is a furniture designer and maker. “Seeing how my parents were both so themselves, and every day they pursued something they were very driven by, that inspired me a lot,” she says of her childhood influences.
You might expect someone who grew up in such a household to follow a similarly artistic path. Indeed, her sister became a graphic designer, but Wubben-Moy found her feet on the pitch instead. Or, to be more specific, on the streets. “I played street football until I was about nine or ten,” she says. “We lived next to a school, so there was a big wall, which meant you could just bang the ball against it. That was where I fell in love with it, and I always return to those moments and think how beautiful it was that I had it.”
Finding football doesn’t mean she’s left creativity and artistic expression behind, however. Far from it. “I’ve grown up in a symbiosis of creativity, art and sport,” she adds. “That combination has made me who I am today.”
So, who exactly is Lotte Wubben-Moy today? Well, for starters, she’s one of Arsenal Women’s most trusted defenders, a home-grown talent from the club academy who was the Gunners’ Player of the Season last year. A member of the England squads that won Women’s EURO 2022 and reached the 2023 Women’s World Cup final, she has been a regular for Arsenal in the Women’s Champions League since her competition debut in 2021/22, this year helping take them all the way to the final for the first time in 18 years despite being limited by bad luck with injury.
She’s also an advocate for getting young women involved in sport. Along with team-mate Leah Williamson, she spearheaded a campaign to give girls the same access to sport in schools as boys – and, to this day, she’s a passionate believer in the power of creativity. Her Instagram is filled with images of her off-field pursuits, from loaves of sourdough bread she’s baked to art exhibitions she’s visited and doodles and sketches she’s drawn.
“Creativity is a way for me to be more present, be more myself,” she says. “It’s one of the most natural experiences for me. Like, even last night, I was [sitting] after dinner just sketching in my notebook. It just makes me feel like me.” She wants this experience to be more accessible for everyone else too. “Art is a very exclusive world – when it should be inclusive, in my eyes. I think everyone should be able to do it. It’s just that we have this preconceived notion that it’s not for everyone, that art is just for a select few.”
One of the ways she has tried to open up the world of art is by creating her own colouring books for each big tournament she’s been a part of. “One was for the EURO, one was for the World Cup. I wanted kids to be able to get involved in the tournament, [to provide] a cool way to engage in the sport in a different way.”
The colouring books were given out for free and featured artwork from a number of different collaborators. “I’ve been able to bring in some amazing artists,” she says, with one of those artists being a long-time idol of hers, Jamie Hewlett of the band Gorillaz. “I watched the Gorillaz as a kid every day. I love their music. So, when he was able to create a colouring-book outline for me, I was overjoyed.”
Youngsters all over the country took to the colouring books with gusto, and Wubben-Moy shared their coloured-in pages with delight on her social media. She’s also been working on a more targeted project encouraging creative exploration closer to home, with her community programme at Arsenal, Lots to Explore. “Three years ago, when I signed my contract, we asked the club to commit to hosting a programme in my name,” she explains. “They were quite taken aback, because in not many worlds would a footballer ask for a programme in their contract!”
The resulting initiative is an eight-week project for 16-year-old girls in the London boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Camden. It gives girls a space to play football, but the majority of their time is taken up with exploring different creative pursuits. “I wanted the programme to follow along a narrative of exploring life beyond just the white lines, but using football as a means to do that,” says Wubben-Moy. “We wanted young girls to [not only] play football but also learn something that, maybe, they haven’t ever thought about learning. So, we do literature, we do poetry, we do sewing, we do claypot making, we do song recording – we do anything and everything. That’s the beauty of it. I wanted to give young women the chance to explore art and creativity through football.”
It’s clear when she speaks about Lots to Explore that the programme has had just as much impact on her as it has on the young women taking part. In a recent video announcing her latest contract renewal at Arsenal, on which Wubben-Moy herself was creative director, she chose two young women from the Lots to Explore programme to make cameos. “It’s been quite beautiful,” she smiles, employing her favourite word once more to discuss the programme’s effect on her. “I go down pretty much every Tuesday. [There’s been] a few moments where they’ve been nonchalantly gossiping about stuff that’s happened at school, and they suddenly spill something and they’re, like, ‘Oh, I forgot you were there.’ That’s how comfortable they’ve become with me. That’s why it’s beautiful that it’s an eight-week programme. I am just one of them in those moments. I feel like a 16-year-old girl again. I’m ten years removed but in many ways I do still feel that young, and I do still feel like there’s so much we can learn from the younger generations.”
As well as spreading the word to local youngsters, Wubben-Moy also evangelises on the power of creativity to her Arsenal colleagues. “To my team-mates, I always say, ‘You’re creative as well.’ It’s just not in the traditional format, and that’s what we need to get away from, that traditional idea of ‘This is how [art] should be.’ Get out of the box!”
That might be the only time you’ll hear a footballer tell people to get out of the box rather than into it, but it’s valuable advice. You might even say, in true Wubben-Moy parlance, that it’s a beautiful message to live by.
It’s fair to say that ‘beautiful’ might be Lotte Wubben-Moy’s favourite word; it’s one she repeats again and again throughout our conversation. She uses it when describing her childhood playing football on the street, when reflecting on what it’s been like introducing young girls to the game, and especially when talking about the importance of exploring your creative side. You get the sense that she is someone with an enormous capacity for positivity, for seeing the good – and the beautiful – in everything.
It’s no surprise, then, to discover that Wubben-Moy comes from a very creative family background. Her mother works as a seamstress, while her father is a furniture designer and maker. “Seeing how my parents were both so themselves, and every day they pursued something they were very driven by, that inspired me a lot,” she says of her childhood influences.
You might expect someone who grew up in such a household to follow a similarly artistic path. Indeed, her sister became a graphic designer, but Wubben-Moy found her feet on the pitch instead. Or, to be more specific, on the streets. “I played street football until I was about nine or ten,” she says. “We lived next to a school, so there was a big wall, which meant you could just bang the ball against it. That was where I fell in love with it, and I always return to those moments and think how beautiful it was that I had it.”
Finding football doesn’t mean she’s left creativity and artistic expression behind, however. Far from it. “I’ve grown up in a symbiosis of creativity, art and sport,” she adds. “That combination has made me who I am today.”
So, who exactly is Lotte Wubben-Moy today? Well, for starters, she’s one of Arsenal Women’s most trusted defenders, a home-grown talent from the club academy who was the Gunners’ Player of the Season last year. A member of the England squads that won Women’s EURO 2022 and reached the 2023 Women’s World Cup final, she has been a regular for Arsenal in the Women’s Champions League since her competition debut in 2021/22, this year helping take them all the way to the final for the first time in 18 years despite being limited by bad luck with injury.
She’s also an advocate for getting young women involved in sport. Along with team-mate Leah Williamson, she spearheaded a campaign to give girls the same access to sport in schools as boys – and, to this day, she’s a passionate believer in the power of creativity. Her Instagram is filled with images of her off-field pursuits, from loaves of sourdough bread she’s baked to art exhibitions she’s visited and doodles and sketches she’s drawn.
“Creativity is a way for me to be more present, be more myself,” she says. “It’s one of the most natural experiences for me. Like, even last night, I was [sitting] after dinner just sketching in my notebook. It just makes me feel like me.” She wants this experience to be more accessible for everyone else too. “Art is a very exclusive world – when it should be inclusive, in my eyes. I think everyone should be able to do it. It’s just that we have this preconceived notion that it’s not for everyone, that art is just for a select few.”
One of the ways she has tried to open up the world of art is by creating her own colouring books for each big tournament she’s been a part of. “One was for the EURO, one was for the World Cup. I wanted kids to be able to get involved in the tournament, [to provide] a cool way to engage in the sport in a different way.”
The colouring books were given out for free and featured artwork from a number of different collaborators. “I’ve been able to bring in some amazing artists,” she says, with one of those artists being a long-time idol of hers, Jamie Hewlett of the band Gorillaz. “I watched the Gorillaz as a kid every day. I love their music. So, when he was able to create a colouring-book outline for me, I was overjoyed.”
Youngsters all over the country took to the colouring books with gusto, and Wubben-Moy shared their coloured-in pages with delight on her social media. She’s also been working on a more targeted project encouraging creative exploration closer to home, with her community programme at Arsenal, Lots to Explore. “Three years ago, when I signed my contract, we asked the club to commit to hosting a programme in my name,” she explains. “They were quite taken aback, because in not many worlds would a footballer ask for a programme in their contract!”
The resulting initiative is an eight-week project for 16-year-old girls in the London boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Camden. It gives girls a space to play football, but the majority of their time is taken up with exploring different creative pursuits. “I wanted the programme to follow along a narrative of exploring life beyond just the white lines, but using football as a means to do that,” says Wubben-Moy. “We wanted young girls to [not only] play football but also learn something that, maybe, they haven’t ever thought about learning. So, we do literature, we do poetry, we do sewing, we do claypot making, we do song recording – we do anything and everything. That’s the beauty of it. I wanted to give young women the chance to explore art and creativity through football.”
It’s clear when she speaks about Lots to Explore that the programme has had just as much impact on her as it has on the young women taking part. In a recent video announcing her latest contract renewal at Arsenal, on which Wubben-Moy herself was creative director, she chose two young women from the Lots to Explore programme to make cameos. “It’s been quite beautiful,” she smiles, employing her favourite word once more to discuss the programme’s effect on her. “I go down pretty much every Tuesday. [There’s been] a few moments where they’ve been nonchalantly gossiping about stuff that’s happened at school, and they suddenly spill something and they’re, like, ‘Oh, I forgot you were there.’ That’s how comfortable they’ve become with me. That’s why it’s beautiful that it’s an eight-week programme. I am just one of them in those moments. I feel like a 16-year-old girl again. I’m ten years removed but in many ways I do still feel that young, and I do still feel like there’s so much we can learn from the younger generations.”
As well as spreading the word to local youngsters, Wubben-Moy also evangelises on the power of creativity to her Arsenal colleagues. “To my team-mates, I always say, ‘You’re creative as well.’ It’s just not in the traditional format, and that’s what we need to get away from, that traditional idea of ‘This is how [art] should be.’ Get out of the box!”
That might be the only time you’ll hear a footballer tell people to get out of the box rather than into it, but it’s valuable advice. You might even say, in true Wubben-Moy parlance, that it’s a beautiful message to live by.
It’s fair to say that ‘beautiful’ might be Lotte Wubben-Moy’s favourite word; it’s one she repeats again and again throughout our conversation. She uses it when describing her childhood playing football on the street, when reflecting on what it’s been like introducing young girls to the game, and especially when talking about the importance of exploring your creative side. You get the sense that she is someone with an enormous capacity for positivity, for seeing the good – and the beautiful – in everything.
It’s no surprise, then, to discover that Wubben-Moy comes from a very creative family background. Her mother works as a seamstress, while her father is a furniture designer and maker. “Seeing how my parents were both so themselves, and every day they pursued something they were very driven by, that inspired me a lot,” she says of her childhood influences.
You might expect someone who grew up in such a household to follow a similarly artistic path. Indeed, her sister became a graphic designer, but Wubben-Moy found her feet on the pitch instead. Or, to be more specific, on the streets. “I played street football until I was about nine or ten,” she says. “We lived next to a school, so there was a big wall, which meant you could just bang the ball against it. That was where I fell in love with it, and I always return to those moments and think how beautiful it was that I had it.”
Finding football doesn’t mean she’s left creativity and artistic expression behind, however. Far from it. “I’ve grown up in a symbiosis of creativity, art and sport,” she adds. “That combination has made me who I am today.”
So, who exactly is Lotte Wubben-Moy today? Well, for starters, she’s one of Arsenal Women’s most trusted defenders, a home-grown talent from the club academy who was the Gunners’ Player of the Season last year. A member of the England squads that won Women’s EURO 2022 and reached the 2023 Women’s World Cup final, she has been a regular for Arsenal in the Women’s Champions League since her competition debut in 2021/22, this year helping take them all the way to the final for the first time in 18 years despite being limited by bad luck with injury.
She’s also an advocate for getting young women involved in sport. Along with team-mate Leah Williamson, she spearheaded a campaign to give girls the same access to sport in schools as boys – and, to this day, she’s a passionate believer in the power of creativity. Her Instagram is filled with images of her off-field pursuits, from loaves of sourdough bread she’s baked to art exhibitions she’s visited and doodles and sketches she’s drawn.
“Creativity is a way for me to be more present, be more myself,” she says. “It’s one of the most natural experiences for me. Like, even last night, I was [sitting] after dinner just sketching in my notebook. It just makes me feel like me.” She wants this experience to be more accessible for everyone else too. “Art is a very exclusive world – when it should be inclusive, in my eyes. I think everyone should be able to do it. It’s just that we have this preconceived notion that it’s not for everyone, that art is just for a select few.”
One of the ways she has tried to open up the world of art is by creating her own colouring books for each big tournament she’s been a part of. “One was for the EURO, one was for the World Cup. I wanted kids to be able to get involved in the tournament, [to provide] a cool way to engage in the sport in a different way.”
The colouring books were given out for free and featured artwork from a number of different collaborators. “I’ve been able to bring in some amazing artists,” she says, with one of those artists being a long-time idol of hers, Jamie Hewlett of the band Gorillaz. “I watched the Gorillaz as a kid every day. I love their music. So, when he was able to create a colouring-book outline for me, I was overjoyed.”
Youngsters all over the country took to the colouring books with gusto, and Wubben-Moy shared their coloured-in pages with delight on her social media. She’s also been working on a more targeted project encouraging creative exploration closer to home, with her community programme at Arsenal, Lots to Explore. “Three years ago, when I signed my contract, we asked the club to commit to hosting a programme in my name,” she explains. “They were quite taken aback, because in not many worlds would a footballer ask for a programme in their contract!”
The resulting initiative is an eight-week project for 16-year-old girls in the London boroughs of Hackney, Islington and Camden. It gives girls a space to play football, but the majority of their time is taken up with exploring different creative pursuits. “I wanted the programme to follow along a narrative of exploring life beyond just the white lines, but using football as a means to do that,” says Wubben-Moy. “We wanted young girls to [not only] play football but also learn something that, maybe, they haven’t ever thought about learning. So, we do literature, we do poetry, we do sewing, we do claypot making, we do song recording – we do anything and everything. That’s the beauty of it. I wanted to give young women the chance to explore art and creativity through football.”
It’s clear when she speaks about Lots to Explore that the programme has had just as much impact on her as it has on the young women taking part. In a recent video announcing her latest contract renewal at Arsenal, on which Wubben-Moy herself was creative director, she chose two young women from the Lots to Explore programme to make cameos. “It’s been quite beautiful,” she smiles, employing her favourite word once more to discuss the programme’s effect on her. “I go down pretty much every Tuesday. [There’s been] a few moments where they’ve been nonchalantly gossiping about stuff that’s happened at school, and they suddenly spill something and they’re, like, ‘Oh, I forgot you were there.’ That’s how comfortable they’ve become with me. That’s why it’s beautiful that it’s an eight-week programme. I am just one of them in those moments. I feel like a 16-year-old girl again. I’m ten years removed but in many ways I do still feel that young, and I do still feel like there’s so much we can learn from the younger generations.”
As well as spreading the word to local youngsters, Wubben-Moy also evangelises on the power of creativity to her Arsenal colleagues. “To my team-mates, I always say, ‘You’re creative as well.’ It’s just not in the traditional format, and that’s what we need to get away from, that traditional idea of ‘This is how [art] should be.’ Get out of the box!”
That might be the only time you’ll hear a footballer tell people to get out of the box rather than into it, but it’s valuable advice. You might even say, in true Wubben-Moy parlance, that it’s a beautiful message to live by.
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