MY JOB WAS done at Seton Hall. I had my degree and I was qualified to teach Physical Education on either side of the Atlantic Ocean. More importantly to me, I also had the beginnings of a successful career in football. With so many Big East conference awards under my belt there was obviously a lot of interest in me in the USA. But was it right for me to stay out there or go home to England?
I had to consider my options for the future. Although there was a lot of talk, in 1999 there was still, sadly, no professional league in the USA. Still, I knew in my heart that if ever there was going to be one anywhere in the world it was going to have to be in the States.
During the latter part of my last year at college, strong rumours began to fly around that there could be a professional women’s league in the USA in a year or two. That was obviously my kind of thing. It sounded exciting and it was what I was born to do. I just had to get through that one- or two-year period to get there.
I still had a verbal understanding with Vic Akers about a possible return to Arsenal and I thought a lot about that. I respected Vic a great deal. But women’s football in England was still not developing as I had hoped it would or as it needed to, in my opinion. The difference between the England national side and the USA national side, for instance, was massive – from top to bottom. I think it was around this time that I was quoted as saying ‘Women’s football in England is a joke.’ I don’t actually remember saying those words but I guess I must have done. That quote has definitely stayed with me, to this day. But in my eyes it was true at that time.
It felt as though my life was at a crossroads again. I had experienced a great career in football at college level and I still yearned to play the game professionally, but there was no professional league to play in.
Luckily for me, the position of assistant football coach was advertised at Seton Hall shortly after I graduated. It was really good timing. Betty Ann Kempf knew what I wanted to do long term and she helped me a lot on my way to achieving that goal. I had no coaching experience at all, but I quickly learned. So, I drew a line under my studying and partying days and stepped into a job. The playing part continued, of course, as it had to for me. But I was now working for a living.
I genuinely felt that I had control of my drinking at this time. I could still switch off the desire to drink when I needed to. It was not out of control. I could always say no if I had to. But, as I have admitted, I didn’t say no too much. Even so, at this point in my life drinking was not a big problem for me. In hindsight, I think the main question was probably this: why was I drinking?
Of course, working in America meant living in America and being ready for a professional league if and when it finally happened. So I found myself a new part-time team, New Jersey Lady Stallions, alongside Seton Hall. England, for now, would have to wait.
I found the coaching role at college quite hard to do because I was working with my old team-mates. Suddenly I was a different type of figure to them, something of a figurehead in fact. I had to speak up a lot more too, which I didn’t find easy. I did a lot of office work, behind-the-scenes stuff, which I was much happier doing than talking to the players. But there’s no getting away from it: coaching is a role that is associated with vocal people, and I found that a very challenging part of the job. I also found it really hard to be alongside friends and yet also be in the position of trying to tell them what to do with some form of authority beyond the pitch. Doing that sort of thing wasn’t really me.
For instance, as half-time approached in a match I would start worrying about what I was going to say to the players in the changing room. I would stop watching play in my normal way because I was focusing too much on my half-time team talk. I knew I would get asked, ‘Kelly, what do you think?’ And that brought a lot of pressure my way.
I mean, what could I say to these girls? I became so fearful of messing up with them that I would sometimes panic during play. As soon as half-time was over it was a totally different feeling for me. I was back on it. And then as full-time approached it was the same thing again. I would be expected to give my input, and that meant I would have to speak up. That filled me with fear. Yes it was a living, but it was not the easiest way for me to earn a wage.
Everything changed for me after the USA won the 1999 Women’s World Cup on home soil. A side led by Mia Hamm won the tournament at the Pasadena Rose Bowl in front of 90,185 spectators after a dramatic 5–4 penalty shoot-out in the final against China. It was now only a matter of time before a professional women’s league was created. And I was ready and waiting for that.
Women’s football grabbed America by the throat that year. Over 73,000 fans watched the USA defeat Brazil in the World Cup semi-final at Stanford Stadium in California, ahead of a Major League Soccer match between DC United and San Jose. A reported 60,000 of them left before the men’s match kicked off! I was at the opening game of the World Cup, between USA and Denmark at the Giants Stadium in New Jersey. There were about 80,000 there for that one. It really is hard to put into words just what was happening to the women’s game right in front of my eyes.
Later in the tournament, Sir Bobby Charlton was filmed on stage at the Plaza Hotel in Beverly Hills with another World Cup winner, Jürgen Klinsmann of Germany, discussing the best players from the tournament. President Bill Clinton was at the final. The impact went global, but on home soil it had gone crazy from the outset.
Hamm was the star name in the USA side. Within months she had become Nike’s third-highest-paid athlete, reportedly positioned behind only basketball player Michael Jordan and golfer Tiger Woods. She even got her own Nike building. But Hamm is probably not the player most people remember from that successful side. That honour would go to Brandi Chastain, the player who scored the winning penalty and then promptly whipped her shirt off in the penalty box to celebrate. She appeared on David Letterman’s show after that.
As a result, women’s football – or soccer, as they always call it over there – became a popular sport in the States. Sure enough, it was announced that a professional women’s league was about to be created. Top players from all over the world signed up to play in it. I was lucky to have a head start: I was already out there and had made a name for myself.
My future coach at Boston Breakers, Tony DiCicco, was the head coach of the USA’s 1999 Women’s World Cup-winning team, and he later told me that the support the team got from the press and the public was phenomenal. People went to watch training sessions in their thousands. That tournament totally blew away all the doubts and the doubters. The attendance figures were unreal. The support the USA got was astonishing. The whole game just took off from that moment.
It was sad for me only to be there to see it, not to play in it. England had failed to qualify. The media said I was the best player not at the Women’s World Cup, but that was no consolation at all.
England struggled at the international level. We were in a transition stage at that time, really. We were well beaten in our World Cup qualification group, which included powerhouse nations Germany and Norway, losing five of our six matches. I played in both defeats against Norway and in one of the defeats against Germany. We were still some way behind both countries. I would have to continue to wait patiently before I could play in a Women’s World Cup.
It may have hurt a lot to witness all this euphoria from a national pride viewpoint, but it was tremendous in terms of the bigger picture for all of us who were involved in the game, at any level. From that moment, women’s football never looked back.
The USA players had become household names overnight. There were TV adverts featuring the top names in that side endorsing boots and other products. It was amazing to see our sport take off like this right in front of my eyes. A foundation was set up to help younger players come through the ranks. The money women footballers could earn rose significantly. A lot of the players who have earned a living in the States playing football in the twenty-first century are so grateful for the success of that 1999 team. They earned the game respect. They paved the way for what followed.
It was great to be there and witness it all first hand, and obviously I wanted a slice of it. It was what I had always wanted. And it was happening on my doorstep.
All twenty USA squad players were allocated a team in the new professional Women’s United Soccer Association league, and they were paid a good amount of money for that. Each franchise built its team around their two or three players, which was a good idea and worked really well. A maximum of four international players could be added to those two or three USA players in each franchise, and home-grown youngsters plus the top graduating college players made up the rest. So there was a strong base of players throughout the league with successful internationals providing the core group of talent. It was also a great way to market the teams, and the league of course. It was a good, well-thought-through format, and it was to prove very successful. I couldn’t wait for it to start.