Her school principal told her football wasn’t for girls – she’s now a doctor for a top women’s club in England
From treating injuries on the pitch to making tough calls about when players can return to action, Singaporean doctor Bethany Koh has provided medical cover at more than 60 women’s football matches in England, including for Chelsea FC Women.
Inspired by her passion for football, Singaporean Bethany Koh forged a career that she did not even know existed before – as a first-team doctor for Chelsea FC Women. (Photo: Wing Sze Chong)
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It all began – oddly enough – on a basketball court at Raffles Girls’ Primary School during the 2002 FIFA World Cup. Like many, 10-year-old Bethany Koh was caught up in World Cup fever.
Someone brought a ball to school, and Koh started playing football with her friends at every recess, going back to class sweat-soaked and exhilarated.
That World Cup ended with Brazil winning, and Koh kept on playing. In secondary school, she and her friends even tried to set up a girls’ football co-curricular activity (CCA). They gathered enough girls to form an 11-a-side team and found a teacher willing to oversee the CCA.
But her principal shut the idea down because “football is not for girls”. That did not quell her fire. Koh continued playing at recess, and on weekends on fields in Bedok. “You just use your shoes as the goalpost,” the 34-year-old Singaporean recalled with a laugh.
Today, that free-spirited girl sits on the team bench of Chelsea FC Women, one of England’s top women’s football clubs. She’s not there as a player, but a first-team doctor caring for the competitive squad, helping them stay in peak condition.
BEHIND THE SCENES ON MATCH DAY
On Sep 27, Chelsea FC Women faced rivals Arsenal Women before nearly 20,000 spectators. “Football is like a religion here,” said Koh.
As a first-team doctor, Koh was on the team bench – it’s not always the best view because it is so low down, she said. But she is there for the players, not the game. While the rest of the stadium was riveted on the ball, her eyes remained on the players.
“Instead of following the ball, I am often still watching the player who has made that move. If our striker gets tackled and the defender clears the ball, for example, I’ve still got eyes on our striker who’s picking herself up. I’m checking how she walks and if she looks a bit dazed,” she told CNA Women.
Her job is to assess injuries and provide emergency medical care, where necessary.
“If it’s a head injury, usually my physiotherapist goes in and immobilises the head, and I start doing an assessment.
“We communicate with hand signals such as an X or a stretcher sign across the field. We also communicate with radios or walkie-talkies. Sometimes, paramedics need to come in and take a player off the pitch,” she said.
Besides severe injuries, Koh also treats common ailments before and during the matches – hay fever, cramps, rashes, blocked nose, nausea. She comes prepped with a suitcase full of medicine, “a little pharmacy”, she said.
Hours before the kick-off, the team and staff, including the manager, coaches, operations and medical staff, dine together. It’s an informal check-in for Koh to follow up on medical issues or prescribe medication for players.
She is also there in the changing room when the manager gives the rousing pre-match talk. And when her team wins, she runs onto the pitch with the rest of the staff to high-five the players and join the group huddle.
“Being in that huddle, taking it all in – the fans, the players who had worked so hard – you really feel like a part of it,” she said.
KEEPING FOOTBALLERS FIT AND HEALTHY
Much of a football doctor’s work happens beyond the roar of the stadium.
As Chelsea FC Women’s first-team doctor, Koh cares for 27 professional footballers who play in major league and cup competitions.
In many ways, Koh serves as their primary care doctor, managing their day-to-day concerns, prescriptions and coordinating their care among specialists.
This extends beyond sports injuries and musculoskeletal issues to common ailments like colds, allergies, menstrual cramps, minor cuts and bug bites.
Elite athletes may require earlier investigations and treatment, such as magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) for a persistent sore knee.
She also has the unenviable job of deciding when to pull players from training or matches, sometimes for seemingly trivial issues like diarrhoea, vomiting or a cold.
For elite athletes, even a cold needs to be taken seriously if accompanied by fever, chills and muscle aches, she explained. “If you push athletes, their illness could get worse. Very rarely, there is also a risk that it could cause long-term damage to the heart muscle,” she said.
The most common reasons for being pulled from a game are lower-limb musculoskeletal injuries, which include hamstrings and quadriceps injuries, she added.
Head injuries can be trickier. Koh looks out for signs such as staggering, confusion or a vacant look which may indicate that a concussion has occurred.
Players with suspected concussions are pulled from the game immediately and undergo at least eight days of rehabilitation, often for 14 days or longer, she said. Even if they feel fine, a second blow could cause more severe injury and prolong recovery, Koh explained.
Tensions can arise when Koh has to sideline a player who is eager to return to training or competition.
“It was difficult because the player may feel like you’ve lost their trust. They’d been so open in telling you about symptoms that they thought were nothing, but suddenly they’re not playing.
“But as long as you can justify why you made that decision, you just have to own it and stand by it,” she said.
PURSUING AN UNUSUAL DREAM
As a child, Koh did not even know the job of a football doctor existed. Yet, in hindsight, many of her big decisions were somehow shaped by football.
Koh chose to study at Victoria Junior College for its strong football teams. She was part of the school’s girls’ football team that won the National Schools ‘A’ Division Championship in 2008 and 2009.
After her A-Levels, she studied kinesiology in Toronto, Canada, followed by a medical degree in London, hoping to work in sports medicine. A talk by a football doctor at her university unlocked a new career path for her.
She continued to play football recreationally in Toronto and joined her medical school’s football team in London. A Liverpool fan, Koh also immersed herself in the football culture in England.
She attended free sports medicine talks in the United Kingdom and volunteered at sports medicine, football and female athlete health conferences in Europe, the United States and Malaysia in exchange for free admission.
These events gave her the opportunity to find out more about being a football doctor. She would wait after talks or queue behind sports doctors for coffee, hoping to introduce herself, seek advice and make connections.
In 2023, she got her big break as a locum doctor providing medical cover for Brighton & Hove Albion Women, one of the clubs in England’s leading women’s football league, for two games.
“It was surreal being the doctor for some of these big-name players that I had heard of, being part of their team talk before the game, and getting insights into the tactical game plan,” she said of her first match.
“I was just trying not to make a sound, drop anything or interrupt the moment,” she laughed.
Since 2023, Koh has provided medical cover for more than 60 matches, working as a first-team doctor for London City Lionesses and Brighton & Hove Albion Women, before joining Chelsea FC Women full-time in August this year.
Now that she’s a football doctor for a top English team, Koh admitted that she no longer follows football or plays as much recreationally. She gets her football fix in the thick of action as part of the team she cares for instead.
What would Koh tell her 13-year-old self who loved football so much that she wanted to start a CCA? “You never know what might happen with an interest. So just stick with it and keep having fun along the way.”
CNA Women is a section on CNA Lifestyle that seeks to inform, empower and inspire the modern woman. If you have women-related news, issues and ideas to share with us, email CNAWomen [at] mediacorp.com.sg.
Source: CNA/pc
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