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Raise Your Game: What is your role?

Sammy Margo: I'm a chartered physiotherapist and this is my practice. We've got six physiotherapists and two pilates instructors. We treat a mixture of back pain, neck pain and sports injuries for sports people, as well as teach people good posture with Pilates classes.

RYG: What was your pathway into this role?

SM: My career in physiotherapy started in 1989, when I qualified as a physio. I started working for the NHS as well as working in football at the same time. Having worked at the NHS I decided I wanted to go and travel a bit, so I worked in France as a physio at a ski resort. Then I went to the World Student Games and I looked after the England basketball team, England athletics team and the England judo team.

After that I came back to London and I started working in a sports club as a physio treating regular people. I also decided I needed to study a bit more, so I went back and I did a Masters in physiotherapy, and eventually set up my own private practice all by myself.

RYG: What is physiotherapy?

SM: Physiotherapy, apart from being a fantastic profession, is a method that helps facilitate the healing process. The way we do that is through massage, mobilisation, stretching, acupuncture and we use posturary education. We teach people how to walk, sit, move and sleep better.

RYG: Traditionally we tend to think of physio's as these big strong men that come on at half-time in a rugby match, how difficult was it for you coming into an industry that's so male dominated?

SM: I was one of the first physio's to ever work in the FA and I used to look after a team called Barnet Football Club. I did that when I was around about 20-years-old. In the beginning it was actually quite frightening, running on the pitch with all of these crowds shouting out 'Sammy, Sammy, give us a wave,' but actually I got used to it and I loved working in football.

I spent all of my weekends travelling with the team, be it at home or away, and I spent most of my evenings looking after a squad of 20 guys working in professional football. It was a fantastic time.

RYG: You were the first chartered female physiotherapist, how difficult was it for you to get recognition?

SM: It was quite difficult to get recognition because women weren't really allowed into the sport. It's changed massively since them. For example, when we went up north to Darlington I wasn't actually allowed in the boardroom. It was a no women zone, but it's certainly not like that now. We've got women playing football and we've got plenty of female physio's running onto the pitches.

RYG: What was your career path into physiotherapy?

SM: I wasn't a fantastic athlete, but I really knew that I wanted to be involved in sport. At the age of 14 I sought advice from my school careers advisor and we discovered that I had three options. One was to be an occupational therapist, two was to be a physiotherapist and three was to be a pharmacist, so I went out and spent a day looking into each option.

The physio was amazing, so positive, encouraging and engaging, and I thought I really want to be like that and I really want to help people to get better and stronger and get them out of pain and help them move, so I completely fell in love with the profession.

RYG: A lot of students don't generally know what they want to do when they're that age. What advice would you give to somebody who's looking at opportunities for a strong female role model in a male dominated profession?

SM: Take advice and ask your friends, or your parents' friends, if you can shadow them at work and really think clearly about what things you like doing. What are your hobbies? What are your interests? If you like sports and you're not really good at doing sports, but you love watching them, physio is a great profession to be in. You can do it as much as you want to, you can have children, you can work part-time, full-time, you can be self-employed or you can actually be employed by the NHS.

The fantastic thing about physio is that it lends itself to all sorts of people. It welcomes men, women, all races, all disabilities and I even know of blind physio's that are currently working.

It's a fantastic profession and it also helps me keep fit, strong and slim, because during the day I'm teaching people how to stand properly, how to sit properly and I've got to walk my talk.

RYG: What highlights do you experience on a day-to-day basis?

SM: It's probably one of the most deeply satisfying jobs to do. We have patients who come through the door with pain disability, and we're actually helping them to get out of their pain and we're improving their quality of life.

One end of the spectrum for example is if we've got someone like your grandma, who can't even make herself a cup of tea as she can't walk into the kitchen because she's too frightened to walk, we'll teach her how to gain the confidence to walk so she can make herself a cup of tea.

I also work with professional athletes, such as basketball players and professional skiers, and rehabilitate people so that they can go on and win gold. I often feel that I'm part of that gold medal because I've actually helped to get them fit and strong to go and win gold.

RYG: You're very slight as a person, and I can't imagine you pushing and pulling these big rugby or football players about. How do you jump into that and say 'I'm going to have a go at that'?

SM: Looks can be really deceiving. I might look really slight and slim, but actually what you need as a physio is technical strength. When you go to physio school you learn how to get into good positions for treating patients so I've really learnt to use my slight body weight correctly.