WHEN I CONSIDERED my immediate future in the game, it seemed a realistic aim to be back playing for Arsenal before the WSL broke for six weeks at the beginning of July, and therefore in good time before Great Britain’s women’s team kicked off the Olympic Games in Cardiff, scheduled for Wednesday 25 July.
I accept it is touch and go. It will certainly be tight. But I think that if luck is on my side, it is achievable. If I can get a few games under my belt then everything becomes possible again. I just have to hope and pray that this is the case. But I admit: I don’t do it easy, me!
I have beaten myself up enough about it all over the past few months, from forgetting that I was injured when I kicked that ball at the TV shoot to putting myself through all this agony again, and so on. I accept that I am the one who has put my chances of playing for Arsenal, England and Great Britain in jeopardy.
That is the order in which it all hit me. My initial thought was that I felt bad because I couldn’t play for Arsenal. Then I started to think about England. Then I started to think about the Olympics. I only have myself to blame. I certainly can’t blame anybody else. The fact is, I was stupid.
Thankfully my coping strategies are much stronger now than they were a few years ago. My personal journey has taught me how to accept whatever happens to me and understand what needs to happen for me to get back on track. I have set my targets and I am on schedule to achieve those targets. The rest of it I cannot control.
I am trying not to think too negatively about it all. I need to have a positive frame of mind and to send positive vibes out to my whole body that I am going to get there. I will certainly be doing everything possible to achieve that. That is the route I am going down. I don’t even want to think about any disappointment or heartache. I won’t allow myself to do that.
I am really looking forward to playing in the WSL. Reducing the number of teams in the top league from twelve down to eight – Arsenal, Birmingham, Bristol, Chelsea, Doncaster, Everton, Lincoln and Liverpool – has made it more elite. But it is still a semi-professional set-up. Most of the players still have to find part-time work elsewhere. None of the eight clubs are allowed to pay more than four of their players an annual salary of more than £20,000. This excludes the £16,000 per annum that the England international players receive under their central contracts from the Football Association.
Having said that, the first WSL season was successful, with decent media coverage too, and of course it was great that Arsenal won it.
The Arsenal side is a mix of youth and experience. It has a lot of potential. We have still got some of the core players from our glory days – Faye White, Rachel Yankey and so on. I can now add Alex and me to that list too. That experience remains a big part of the Arsenal team; it’s essential to have players who have gone through a lot and know how to win games. Our younger players will learn from us, and that will only help them and Arsenal going forward. I think that the mixture we have at the club at the moment is ideal. Looking ahead to the future, it could be great – again.
I haven’t played in the WSL yet, so I can’t comment too much about it. But I can see certain improvements in the league from the time when I used to play for Arsenal a few years ago, and certainly from my first time at the club. I am mainly talking about the standard of play, but to some extent also the attitude of the players involved.
Everybody is on their own individual training programme now, even if they are only training for a couple of nights per week with their club. At Arsenal, we still train together for just two nights a week, like we did when I was there before. But it does feel a much better set-up now all round, across the board.
Of course, Arsenal is a top club, so our facilities – everything from the kit upwards, really – have always been spot on. It’s the other teams that have not been up to our standards. So the WSL is a long overdue step in the right direction for women’s football in our country.
Sadly, that has not been reflected in the salaries for the players. It is not ideal money-wise for us, only enough for us to train on and to live on. I have to accept that I am not going to make a lot of money from women’s football in England. That has always been the case and, to be blunt about it, it is still no different. But it is better than it was.
Some of the non-league pitches that we have to play on are very poor. We are the elite players in our sport and we have to compete on hard and bobbly surfaces. This isn’t good enough. We need better facilities to showcase our talent. Some of the changing rooms are small and dingy and that needs to change as well. It would be nice to think that the way forward could be for the WSL teams to have their own purpose-built stadiums with a 3,000 to 4,000 capacity.
I have noticed a shift in the national media coverage since Alex and I re-signed for Arsenal. Faye White and Ellen White featured in a piece on Football Focus with us, prior to the WSL starting up again. I was impressed with the comments made by Mark Lawrenson and Robbie Savage in the studio afterwards. They recognized the importance of the WSL and women’s football at the Olympic Games and the opportunity for us to take the game on to another level on home soil should we be successful this summer. They mentioned my name too, which was nice.
Social media is also becoming a new way forward for women’s football. Players can now reach out to fans without the need of newspapers, radio or television. The FA and the WSL have both recognized the growth in this area and they have tried to promote our game through it. Each of the eight WSL clubs now has two ‘ambassadors’ to promote the team and the sport through social media. Some players have their Twitter usernames on their sleeves to promote this initiative. My username is @kjs8eng.
ESPN show live coverage of WSL matches and they also have a weekly highlights programme. This is healthy for the growth of our game. Any exposure is good, but professional, positive exposure is very good. As a player, it makes you feel like the WSL matters. Viewers can watch their team live or catch up with the highlights every week. This allows them to get an overview on which team is top and which team is bottom, and to see the best goals of the week and so on. They can now follow the league properly, as they would do in men’s football.
It cannot be overstated how important television coverage is to the growth of our game. I mentioned earlier how some of us have become role models for young girls due to our performances for England at international tournaments that are being shown live on television. The same applies to the WSL. The greater audience, the greater impact.
However, a lot of people still say to me that they don’t see enough women’s football on television in the United Kingdom. They ask me why that is, and I am like, ‘I don’t know.’ It seems to me that it has always been on the back burner rather than at the forefront of thinking in the world of television. Hopefully, that is slowly changing.
But when it comes to television, we have seen a big interest in the game followed by nothing a few times over the past decade or so. When England got to the final of Women’s Euro 2009, for instance, we only got terrestrial coverage for our very last match, despite us doing well at the 2007 Women’s World Cup two years earlier. So I can understand it when people say that they don’t find it easy to follow what we are up to as a team sometimes, that they have to go searching for coverage of us here and there. On many occasions in the past they have been disappointed. On many occasions in the past, so have the players.
The BBC’s coverage of women’s football has been very good over the last decade. Gabby Logan really cares about the game, and having ex-professionals in the studio such as Martin Keown and, before that, Gavin Peacock has been very important. Sue Smith, who is still involved with England of course, has now become a name associated with television coverage too.
So it’s excellent for women’s football that the BBC are extensively screening the Olympic Games this summer. It’s the biggest sporting event on earth, and 2012 is going to be the biggest Olympics yet. As British athletes, we are in a privileged position to represent our country at home. As footballers, both the men’s and women’s team are in a privileged position to be able to take part. It is many years since Great Britain has entered a men’s team in the Olympics football tournament, and we have never entered a women’s team.
It has been a long road for us to get to this stage. With England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland all having separate football associations and competing as separate nations, in both FIFA and UEFA tournaments, there is no Great Britain team in the world of football. But, as hosts in 2012, Great Britain has received a special invitation to enter teams in both the men’s and women’s football events. We qualified, of course, for the 2008 Olympics in Beijing after finishing as one of the top European teams in the 2007 Women’s World Cup. But, sadly, we weren’t allowed to take part because GB competes in the Olympics, not England. So it’s a real bonus for us that we now have this chance due to London staging the games.
I remember how ecstatic I felt when I thought that we were going to the 2008 Olympics. This was before the truth of the situation sank in. We were all buzzing, and then suddenly we weren’t going. It was taken away from us and Sweden went to Beijing instead. I just wanted to bang my head against the wall in frustration. It was so disappointing at that time because we felt that we were there. It was a sad situation. Whatever the reasons, it’s the athletes who lose out at times like that, and that feels wrong to me.
I always dreamed about playing in a Women’s World Cup, because I could see that goal. But I never really fantasized about playing in the Olympics because we have never had a Great Britain women’s football team. So it took a while for it all to sink in with me.
The Olympic Games women’s football competition is the ultimate for the American players, even more so than the World Cup. That is how big they view the Olympics over there. It is the same across all sports. The Olympics is at the top of the ladder for any athlete. So, having lived in the States for so long, I heard about that a lot. To think that I now have an opportunity to take part myself is glorious.
It will seem a little strange for us to be wearing a Great Britain kit and not an England one. All of my international appearances have been with the Three Lions on the chest. I am now just eight caps behind Gill Coultard’s women’s record of 119 England caps. But I am still behind Yanks, and a few more of my team-mates have recently won their hundredth caps too, so setting records in that area isn’t a priority for me. I don’t think along those lines at all, actually.
I am, however, proud to be England’s top goalscorer in women’s football. And I am proud of each and every one of the forty-five goals I’ve notched up for my country. The two goals I scored against Japan in the 2007 World Cup are my favourites – just because they meant so much to me. Sir Bobby Charlton holds the record for the England men’s team at forty-nine. But, again, I wouldn’t hang on in there just to try and beat that. I just enjoy playing the game and doing what I do, and whatever happens, happens. I shall be content.
In agreement with the British Olympic Association, the (English) FA will select the GB teams. Hope Powell is the women’s coach and Stuart Pearce is the men’s coach. Apart from England, none of the other home football associations have been in favour of a Great Britain football team. Whether any players, male or female, from Scotland, Wales or Northern Ireland will be selected remains to be seen.
Either way, I think we have a good chance of doing well in the tournament, especially now that we know who we’re facing. New Zealand in our opening game will no doubt be a tough proposition, but I think we’ll get past them, and we should beat the Cameroon side as well, despite them being pretty much an unknown quantity. The England team has competed at the highest level in women’s football over the past few years; we have held our own, and we should be confident of doing the same in a GB shirt. The big group game will be Brazil at Wembley – a mouth-watering prospect. I have never played against Brazil. They have truly amazing players in their ranks. If selected, it would be another dream come true for me to line up against those famous yellow shirts at Wembley.
All England’s traditional big rivals will be there, with one exception – Germany. Due to their quarter-final defeat at the hands of Japan in the 2011 World Cup, the strongest team in our game over the past decade have not qualified to compete at London 2012. France and Sweden will take part. Both these countries reached the semi-finals in Germany last year.
I think it’s a shame that Germany will not be here. They have always been there or thereabouts as a nation in women’s football. They have been a consistent and dominant force in our sport for so long. They still are, make no mistake about that. I have always considered them to be the country to beat. They have always produced excellent players – big, strong competitors – and they continue to do so. Sometimes I wonder what they put in the water over there. Look at someone like Birgit Prinz in her prime! She has now retired, of course, but the success of the German women’s team has always been about replacing one great player with another. They have a formidable production line. So I say again, it’s a big loss for the competition. Then again, the competitive side of my nature has to admit that it does whet my appetite a little bit more. To lose one of the big nations before we even kick off in the summer is a big boost for all of us.
Without the Germans, I see the USA, Japan, Brazil, France and Sweden as our main rivals. These are five very strong, very capable teams. So going far in the competition is not going to be easy for us. But having strong home support behind us will help us enormously.
We should also not forget that in the 2011 World Cup we beat Japan, the winners of the tournament, and we led against France in the quarter-finals until a few minutes from time. We also beat the USA and Sweden in friendlies last year. So on our day we will fear nobody, and we shouldn’t fear anybody either.
I expect both last year’s World Cup finalists, Japan and the USA, to do well. I really rate Japan at the moment. The USA went over there recently and lost to them again, but the States always turn up for the big tournaments and they will be in the mix again. Brazil, just because they’re Brazil, and for having Marta in their side, will be great to watch again and they have a big chance too.
I think France are the dark horses of the competition. I felt that we showed them too much respect in the Cyprus Cup earlier this year, but they are a very good side. A lot of their players are with Olympique Lyonnais, and, as we found with Arsenal a few years ago, that is a big plus. When players are together on a regular basis, playing at the highest level, it really does help and it can take a team to another level. Lyon currently rate as one of the best women’s club teams in the world.
We have got to make sure that we get our mental attitude right. We need to use all our experiences in tournament football to Great Britain’s advantage. We have got to go into the Olympics striving for gold. This is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for our nation. We know that. England got silver in Euro 2009 and we were bitterly disappointed with how everything ended up at the World Cup last year. So I think there will be that extra bit of hunger in the English players. I genuinely think that all of us have a good chance of standing on top of the podium in August.
It’s a twelve-team competition so it will work in the same way as Euro 2009, with the top two teams and the two best third-placed teams qualifying for the quarter-finals from three groups of four.
We will play our first two group matches at the Millennium Stadium in Cardiff, and then move to Wembley Stadium for our final game before the knockout stages. That match against Brazil is on the evening of Tuesday 31 July, and I can’t wait for it. Fingers crossed and all that. Old Trafford, home of Manchester United; St James’ Park, home of Newcastle United; the Ricoh Arena, home of Coventry City; and Hampden Park in Glasgow will also host matches. These are big stadiums to play in, some of the very best in Great Britain.
But I would prefer it if all the matches were being played in and around London. That is how I would personally view the Olympics. London was awarded the Games, it is the host city, so I don’t quite understand what those other cities have to do with London, to be honest. Obviously the idea is to spread the games around the country, so that’s cool. Let’s just wait and see if the attendances justify that decision. My personal opinion is that if the football was being held just in London, it would be better supported. It will certainly be a strange feeling to be competing in the London Olympics in a stadium in Cardiff. Having said that, I do see the bigger picture and it will be great to feel that we have the whole nation behind us.
Wembley, however, will host the final of the Olympic women’s football tournament on the evening of Thursday 9 August. That is the big one.
If I can just go back to when I was first starting out as a footballer, as a young girl, having to play in a boys’ team just to get a game … the thought then of representing my country in an Olympic football final at Wembley Stadium with the chance of winning a gold medal would have been a complete fantasy. There wasn’t an Olympic football tournament for women for a start. But all these years later it is possible that it can now happen for me. It is so near that I can almost touch it.
As a fitting finale for a footballer, could there ever be anything better than winning a gold medal for Great Britain at the Olympic Games at Wembley Stadium? Whatever dreams that young girl in Garston had, she could never have made that one up.