I was beyond honoured to be invited to this year’s Professional Footballer’s Awards at Manchester Opera House. Thank you to Zoe from my model agency Zebedee Talent for being such a huge supporter of my footballing journey along with my modelling career.

I wore an exclusive piece by the incredible designer Hulahan. It’s called the ‘Multiverse’ dress – a zero waste design, cut on the bias, so it flows around the body. Thank you to The Birmingham Fashion Council who introduced us earlier this year.

The night began with the red carpet walk. Wow! No words… apart from WOW!

I even bumped into Aitch who was one of the people who supported me back in 2022 when I almost lost my life. It was a really nice full circle moment where I truly recognised how far I had come.

The evening was so much fun with interviews with Good Morning Britain and lots of papping by the paparazzi… I even made it into a few articles the next day:

The Full list of winners can be found here.

My plan is to return next year with the full squad with the World Cup Trophy in hand… please help make that dream happen.

I was proud to be invited to support Disability Snowsport UK’s new summer campaign. The team at DSUK were responsible for getting me skiing again after I lost my leg age 13. You can read about my journey back to skiing here. Since then I’ve been on two ski trips to Bulgaria and Les Deux Alpes, both only possible because of the confidence and support I received from DSUK

The aim of the campaign is to encourage people to take on a 10k sporting challenge to help raise £10,000 enabling other people like me to access snowsports.

I managed to mention the fundraiser in an early morning live radio interview the night after a very late party with my friends, so I am very proud of myself!

HOW YOU COULD GET INVOLVED:

1. Choose Your Challenge: whether it’s covering 10 kilometres or taking 10,000 steps, it’s up to you. Make it your own and the possibilities are endless.

2. Register & Set Your Target: Register by clicking the “Sign Up Now!” button above and then setup a JustGiving page for yourself or your team. Share your journey with friends and family, and monitor your progress towards your fundraising goals.

3. Share and Celebrate:  Join our WhatsApp Challenge group to share your progress, celebrate milestones, and encourage fellow participants. Tag us and use the hashtag #TeamDSUK on your social media channels.

Or, if you’re not sporty, you could just donate to Disability Snowsports UK here.

The BBC have picked up on my story and I was asked to film a piece for the news. It was very exciting when I saw it on the TV – I was about to head out to the PFA Awards… I don’t usually dress that glamorously in my own home on a random Tuesday!

There has also been some great coverage of the campaign in Staffordshire Living Magazine.

Skiing is magical and it played a major part in my life before I lost my leg. Now thanks to DSUK I can still experience that magic, and for that, I will be forever grateful.

This summer the wonderful pro bono campaign by Kitchen Soho introduced us Amputee Lionesses to the world. It began back in May when Ed Chilcott, creative founder of the advertising agency made it his mission to get us amputee lionesses to the World Cup in Colombia this November. We need to raise £50,000 to cover the costs of getting to the tournament and with no FA support, no financial backing and no official sponsors, Ed realised we were going to need all the help we could get. He brought on board the amazing filmmaker Deane Thrussell, and together they produced this wonderful campaign film:

Filming took place at our home ground at Reaseheath College. It was a truly magical day with the sun setting on the final shot of the evening:

The campaign launched when I was on holiday, but three of the team went on the This Morning sofa to discuss the campaign. This was arranged, again totally pro bono, by the wonderful PR guru Nick Ede from East of Eden agency.

With the help of Limited Space Media, posters of our campaign were visible up and down the country on massive billboards. I had so much fun tracking them down and posing next to them for scale.

In particular the massive billboards on both the Northbound and Southbound sections of the M5 were pretty impressive!

We were also front page of The Daily Express, with a double page spread detailing everything about us and our campaign, again all thanks to Nick and his team at East of Eden.

Again I had a fun time popping to my local newsagents to pick up a copy:

Our advert has been shown on Sky Sports News, and in between coverage of the Paralympics:

The full film has even been shown up and down the country in cinemas before feature films:

We’ve even had massive adverts in all of the big newspapers:

However we are still a massive way off our target and I have started to worry that we won’t be able to go to the World Cup. I have lost so much in my life already and I don’t want to lose this chance. I just don’t understand how we can have a campaign with so much reach and so much pro bono support, yet we still haven’t managed to get the attention of any big brands or big sponsors. Is it time to get angry, or just stay deflated and let down? Should I accept the fact that brands don’t care? That companies don’t care? That the FA doesn’t care? What a blow for me and my team. Hey ho, we will all keep pushing and hope for a last-minute miracle. If that miracle is you, or anyone you know, please share the link, or donate here.

If you are fortunate enough to be selected for Coco Rocha’s Model Camp in New York as I was earlier this year, you’ll learn the secret of the 100 list. Obviously I can’t share that secret with you all, but I can confirm, categorically,  that the 100 list absolutely does work!

Okay, I’ll give you a tiny insight into part of it… Coco Rocha instructed all of us models to reach out to our local communities as a way of building links in the modelling world. As an A star student I did exactly that and contacted The Birmingham Fashion Council. They said I’d be perfect for fashion week and our connection was made. Coco was right.

Birmingham Fashion Week 2024 is from 25^th -27^th October, so the first campaign involved creating a video to advertise the event. We filmed in Birmingham City Centre, here’s some BTS footage that gives a flavour of the day:

Again with all successful events it’s all about promo promo promo. So this weekend we met some of the designers who’ll be showcasing their designs on the runway and modelled their clothes for the campaign.

The day was shot by the incredible photographer Beth Pulley. Here’s some highlights:

And thank you to Coco for introducing me to the magical 100 list!

The World Cup Journey Continues

The World’s First Women’s Amputee Football World Cup is less than 4 months away and our training schedule is intensifying. Not only do we have our camps in Crewe…

…but we performed for the very first time in front of a crowd at the Champions League Final Fan Festival in London.

The day was truly magical, ending with Real Madrid beating Borussia Dortmund 2-0.

We’ve also filmed our fundraiser that should be launched sometime in the coming weeks with the aim of raising the funds we need to get us to Colombia to compete against the other nations in November.

No one knows how well we’ll perform… but I do know I’m giving it everything I’ve got.

Elle Magazine – May 2024 – Print Edition

Excitement levels are huge! I have my first Editorial Feature Interview in Elle Bulgaria… and my name even made it onto the front cover!

The title translates as: “The Breathtaking History of Annabel Kiki.” Not bad for a 15-year-old!

I’m sure, like me, you can’t nip down to your local Bulgarian corner shop and read the Bulgarian interview… I am pretty big in Bulgaria though – I think it was because I did so much for their ski tourism last year 😉

So here’s the translation:

Hi Annabel! Where did you grow up, what is your family like?

Hello! I grew up in Staffordshire, right next to Cannock Chase. It’s the prettiest area of natural beauty, full of walking trails, mountain bike courses and treetop adventures. My family are really sporty so it suits us perfectly, we’re forever outside finding fun.

What kind of childhood did you have? What did you dream of becoming as a child?

It sounds really clichéd but I did have the perfect childhood. My brother is exactly one year older than me, so we’ve never really known life without each other. Our friendship circles have formed one big group and we go out together all the time. My family love to travel and by the time I was 13 I’d already visited twenty different countries. I felt blessed. I was happy. I felt content and carefree, as any child should feel. I had dreams of becoming a world-class athlete, or model, or just doing well in school and experiencing life to the max.

Two years ago, they diagnosed you with a bone tumor – osteosarcoma. Scientists say it occurs when a “mistake” occurs in one of the cells responsible for making new bone tissue, but they still don’t know what causes this “mistake.” Please tell us how your leg came to be amputated.

Well, what a shock that was! I just had a sore knee. I thought it was a sports injury, but it wasn’t getting better. I started to limp, so my mum took me for an x-ray. I remember laughing and joking in the hospital waiting room, wondering if I might need a cast or crutches. The idea I’d need a year of chemotherapy, lose my hair, almost die from sepsis, and then get my leg chopped off, was so far outside any reality that I still struggle to comprehend exactly what happened! Why it happened, we’ll also never know. They do think it affects tall children more, whose bones are growing too quickly, but only 30 children a year in the UK are diagnosed with an osteosarcoma, so I guess it was just the challenge that life decided to set for me.

You were still a child… What and who helped you overcome this shock and continue playing sports actively?

My mum Sal never left my side. Her and I have always been a team, and we knew we had to face this head on. In life you can’t change what happens to you, but you can change how you respond to what happens to you, it’s essentially the only real control you have in your life… how you react. As a child I’d reacted to my idyllic upbringing with gratitude and now I knew I had to react to this horror with humility. I’ve never felt angry, and I’ve never cried with self-pity. It is what it is. It’s happened. I can’t change it, but I can learn from it. I used to ski, I now ski with my prosthetic leg. I used to play football, I now play amputee football with crutches. I used to play dress-up and pretend to model, now I actually model.

How did you get into football, how long have you been training, where?

I’ve played football to a high level since I was 7 for Burntwood Phoenix FC. Because Archie, my brother played, it was inevitable that I was going to play too. Honestly we’re so similar, and he could definitely be a model as well, he just struggles to pose without laughing. At one point we were both playing in our separate football teams on a Saturday and then we played together in a mixed team on a Sunday. When I lost my leg I researched amputee football teams and the UK didn’t have any, but Poland did, so I travelled over there in March 2023 to train with their national squad. Since then I’ve helped England set up our own women’s national amputee team.

You’re only 15 and already you’re part of England’s first women’s national football team for amputees. Does that scare you about how you’re going to present yourself, or does it inspire you to keep proving yourself?

When you’ve survived something like osteosarcoma nothing scares you anymore. Honestly I just feel so blessed to be here and honored that I get a second chance at life. It might be harder now in some respects, but it feels fuller, if that makes sense? It’s like I’ve earned it more. And I can’t wait to be singing the national anthem in November at the World Cup in Colombia, and I promise you now, I’m going to score the winning goal in the final.

Every teenager has their worries and difficult moments. What are yours now?

When I was 11, I went to Jamaica and visited Bob Marley’s house in Nine Mile. I can play the piano and I remember sitting down at Bob’s actual piano – everyone there is so laid back and chilled out so they encourage you to have a go – I tried to play ‘No Worries’ … I was 11 and had only just taken my Grade 2 so it was probably a bit rubbish, but I love the lyrics: “Don’t worry ’bout a thing, ‘Cause every little thing gonna be all right.” I remember feeling at peace then. It might have had something to do with everyone on the tour smoking something suspicious, but I felt at peace; and now, even after all of the horror, I still feel at peace. Anything can happen in life, but that’s part of life’s beauty.

Tell us about the motivating events in your life.

I still have to finish my GCSEs so I’m working hard in school. My perfect brother is predicted 9 grade 9s… that’s the highest you can possibly get, so the challenge is on to match that. I’m training for the Paralympics in swimming and World Cup in Football. Plus I’m loving life as a model.

Who are the people who support you the most?

 My family. My friends. That amazing network of women online who genuinely cheer on other women. There’s so much support out there, you just have to be open to receive it.

Colombia is hosting the first World Cup for Women Amputees and you will be representing England with the English Amputee Football Association. How is your training day before the championship?

The day before the World Cup starts I think I’ll probably just be relaxing. If we put the work in now then it should all come together for November.

Is football your cause? I ask because when you’re not playing sports, you’re modeling. In 10 years, where will you be – on the football field or on the catwalk?

Catwalk for sure. Sports is great fun and I love it all and it keeps me fit, but you can’t match the feeling of arriving on set for a photoshoot. It’s magical and inspirational in a way that’s different every time. Goals are goals in football whether you’ve got one leg or two, but in modeling each assignment is so different, each photographer is different, each stylist is different and the people you meet on set are all different, and life should be about stepping out of your ‘echo chamber,’ pushing the boundaries and having new experiences time and time again.

Nothing is impossible – you learned that the hard way, but you clearly have a very strong character to overcome obstacles. What inspires you to keep performing?

I live by the motto: “It’s not what happened to me, it’s what I choose to become.” That’s all that keeps me going, the knowledge that no matter what life throws at me, I am ultimately in control.

The purpose of a model is to make people feel something. That was one of many essential pieces of information I learnt at Coco Rocha’s Model Camp in New York… and I challenge you to watch this video of Coco on a shoot and not feel anything.

You felt it, right? It got to you too? Of course it did. This is supermodel Coco Rocha, known as ‘The Queen of Pose,’ and I was lucky enough to watch that shoot live.

Supermodel, Coco Rocha, known as The Queen of Pose

So how on earth did I end up in the presence of such epicness? Well, I was taking part in an editorial photo shoot with the phenomenal Zuzia Zawada when I mentioned I wanted to improve my walk. Runway is the dream destination for my modelling career and I’d started making strides towards that goal with an appointment to get the new Taleo Adjust foot that would allow me to wear high heels.

Zuzia suggested I attend Coco Rocha’s Model Camp where they focus on signature runway walks, alongside:

• Dynamic posing
• Photo movement
• The art of emoting
• Branding for models
• Social media content
• Industry pitfalls to avoid
• Dealing with agencies
• Negotiating with clients
• Expectations vs. realities

It sounded incredible! I applied online and was accepted. My initial chats with the hugely supportive CRMC – Coco Rocha  Model Camp – team, consisted mostly of: I have a prosthetic leg… are you sure Coco knows? Are you sure Coco will be able to help me? But my leg??!! I obviously panicked enough for Coco herself to message me and assure me that she personally approves all applicants and she’d been through my Instagram and knew all about my leg and story. Wow! This Supermodel…

…this Supermodel had looked at my Instagram. The fashionista with over two decades of experience. I suddenly remembered some of the stupid stuff I had on my page:

Hey ho! I was in! So out I flew to NYC. 3 weeks from Zuzia’s suggestion and I was there. I’m all for grabbing opportunities and seizing the moment. When you’ve been through something like I have you realise life is short, and you should say yes to absolutely everything. The communication from the team was fantastic. Everything was so well organised and the whole camp ran perfectly.

Coco knew exactly what to do with me. From the orientation:

To the posing:

To the runway:

Coco was there helping me every single step of the way. She genuinely is one of the most wholesome people you could ever wish to meet. She’s real, she speaks the truth, and she told me I could. She told me I can. And guess what? I believed her.

The whole experience was just a whole bunch of fire emojis. The other models were so friendly and there were three other girls there my age.

Not only did I learn about how to improve myself as a model, I learned loads about the industry and everything my agency should be doing for me – how much commission they should be taking, and how I should take more ownership of the future I want. It was truly empowering to say the least. More importantly – maybe – was the fact it was fun! I mean, the whole camp was so much fun! The CRMC assistant team, and Coco herself, were always so full of energy and support. Each night was themed… Cocktail, 80s and Island:

Shoot Day was a definite highlight – I actually realise as I’m writing this that I’m lying… it was a highlight, but every single day was a highlight, every single session was a highlight, every single discussion was a highlight. There were no best bits as the whole camp was one gigantic best bit… but yes, shoot day was truly epic:

I now have two more images to add to my book:

EDITORIAL TEAM: Coco Rocha, James Conran, Jeanie Stehr, Caroline Fiss.

GLAM TEAM: Carolyn Cina, Christina Delfino.

ASSISTANT TEAM: Alyssa Bacon, Leah Ruane, Sophia Massad.

I also have a 100 point action plan that I’m working through every day – one of Coco’s fantastic initiatives that you’ll have to find out about for yourself by going on camp. I’m practicing my posing, my walking, my faces, and my emotions. I want people to feel something when they watch me too.

The fire that I had within me has now exploded into a roaring inferno with a blistering desire to become the world’s first above-knee-amputee supermodel walking all the fashion weeks around the world. (I know we have other amazing amputee runway models but they have knees, it’s easier with knees 😉)

I want to become the world’s first above-knee amputee supermodel

But seriously, all the words in this blog can’t convey what a magical experience CRMC truly is and what a magical woman Coco Rocha truly is… so here’s a final video instead:

My quest to ski like I’ve got two legs continues, this time in Les Deux Alpes, France. Last year I went to Bulgaria as it’s a real beginner’s resort, but this year I wanted to challenge myself further with some blue runs instead of just greens.

Les Deux Alpes is a massive resort with over 200km of slopes. It has four beginner zones, 17 green pistes and 45 blue, split across each side of the ski area, which means you can travel all over the mountains without happening upon any scary red runs!

I stayed in Hotel Cote Brune which was absolute perfection.

It was close to the Intersport on Rue Des Vikings for ski collection and right next to all the magic carpets. The journey from the hotel to 2,400m was so easy and fun and there’s a gorgeous après-ski restaurant and bar to reward yourself once you’re there.

The hotel is right next to the famous Umbrella Bar and a few meters away from the festival stages that are up throughout the season, meaning you can party the night away and be really close to home in case the snow starts coming down.

My skiing definitely improved. I am still nowhere near as good as I used to be, but I guess that just means I’ll have to book more ski holidays and keep practicing!

We managed to travel all the way up to the top of the glacier on the funicular railway so we could visit the ice cave. It cost 6 euros per person and was definitely worth it. I didn’t take a video, but my brother did:

I highly recommend the hotel and the resort. The family who run Hotel Cote Brune are the kindest of people. They answered all of my questions before I booked, regarding hotel lifts (the hotel has one and it went from right outside our room down to the spa) and distance to the green slopes e.t.c. They were always on-hand to make the most delicious hot chocolates I’ve ever tasted, and the ski storage lockers on-site were perfect. I could not fault it and I will definitely be returning to room 23 with the most gorgeous of views.

Remember, if I can do it, so can you.

It’s official. I’m an international athlete. The Official England Women’s Amputee Football Team is here. Not only am I in the squad, but I’ll be travelling to Colombia in South America to play in the 2024 World Cup.

Media interest is picking up and I was honoured to have an exclusive interview with Women’s Football Magazine:

It was such a buzz to walk into WHSmiths and see myself on the shelf:

I was also featured in The Daily Mirror. Click here to read the full article.

This weekend marked the first England Camp of the year and it’s safe to say I’m excited. Our squad is full of potential and going from strength to strength.

A big shoutout to the McDonald’s Women’s Franchising Forum who have paid for our new kit and funded the team’s flights out to Belgium in 3 weeks for a European Training Camp – Devastatingly I will be skiing that week (I booked it last year), so I won’t be heading out there, but I’ll be keeping my fitness up on the slopes and it will give the girls who didn’t go to Poland last year a real flavour of the amputee football scene in Europe so they’re prepared for matches later in the year.

Watch out world, we’re coming for you!

Almost a year ago I wrote about being scouted at swimming. It was the first time I’d been in the pool since my amputation and Derby Swimming Club’s incredible para coach, Wayne Davies, happened to be there. He timed me, said I had massive potential and asked me to come and trial with the club in January.

Unfortunately the start of 2023 didn’t go quite as planned and I had to have a couple of lung surgeries, so swimming competitively was completely out of the question.

Following a summer of building my strength and soaking up the sun I decided I was ready to commit to a club. Derby SC’s main pool is almost in Nottingham and I realised it just wasn’t feasible to train up there three or four times a week, so I went on Swim England’s club finder.

My closest two clubs were Bilston and Boldmere, so I went for a trial at both. Both were fantastic and both clubs really wanted me to join, but neither had any other para swimmers and even though Robin Surgeoner was the Head Coach at Boldmere and he’d previously won 9 gold medals at the Paralympics, I just felt I’d be missing out on the expertise of a coach who’d worked with other above knee amputees. Plus the training sessions were in Sutton Coldfield, again, just that little bit too far to fully commit to.

Then something really quite magical happened. Wayne Davies messaged to say he was joining Cannock Phoenix, my local swimming club, as Head Coach! I couldn’t believe it! The top para coach in the country was moving to the club that’s literally on my doorstep!

Safe to say I trialled immediately and was signed on the spot.

I am so excited about my swimming future. Gold medals here we come.