Former Lioness Fara Williams: "There's an appetite for women’s football that I have never seen before"
I watched what the Lionesses did last summer, at the Euros, from the side of the pitch, in my role as a pundit. The achievement was phenomenal. They were history-makers: bringing the first trophy home for the women's game, selling out Wembley Stadium. It made me think back to when I was a young player growing up. This was the only thing that you dreamt of: going to Wembley. I never knew that would be possible for a women’s squad. But watching that, we were finally there, and it was sold out.
I didn’t really have female football role models when I was young; I didn’t know there were any. All I knew was that I loved football. When I was growing up on a council estate in Battersea, you would put a couple of jumpers down as goal posts and everyone would play. Football was the thing to do. It was all ages, all genders – everyone played. I was always encouraged and I never saw it as something I couldn’t do, as a woman.
Interestingly, the barriers came later, when I turned 12 and began my journey into the women’s game. I wasn’t discouraged but I soon realised, when trying to find an all-girls team, how different it was. I didn’t really know much about the FA and how to get into the women’s league. I was watching a Chelsea men’s game and I noticed a small advertisement for women’s trials. I didn’t get picked up off the streets and placed in a team; I had to find and navigate my own way into the game. I started young and throughout my career I played for everyone from Chelsea and Everton to Liverpool. I first played for England when I was 17. But of the 23 years I was a footballer, only nine were professional.
I've had a lot of challenges in my career but the biggest is undoubtedly that I was homeless for the first six years of it. That was hugely difficult – accepting that and trying to get used to the fact that, even though I was playing for these teams, we were not full-time professionals. So, I had to juggle a job and then try and engage myself on the field every evening, all while working up to try and be at the level that was required to play national football.
I first became aware of the national women’s side when I was about 15 and went to see a game. Katie Smith and Rachel Yankey were playing and they were exceptional. It was hard to access women’s games back then; they weren’t on TV and you had to do your own research. But when I look back, seeing those women play for the first time shifted something in me. They ignited my passion to play for England.
I’m not sure I knew how to feel when I actually achieved that dream. I was obviously immensely proud when I first put the shirt on, but I don’t think I really appreciated quite how big it was. I was young and naive as a player. What didn’t hit me until later was that I was becoming the role model for other girls that I never had. When we started to make some sort of impact in tournaments, I realised that the next generation of players were looking up to us in those moments. During the latter part of my career, I was very aware of that and it meant so much to me.
It is what's happening right now, with the Lionesses. The visibility is incredible and important. The BBC showing all the games across that European championship last year had a massive impact on the game. It gave people an appetite for women’s football that I had never seen before. People were really getting behind the the team and that momentum a year on has really carried forward to this World Cup in Sydney now.
The atmosphere is incredible and I am so happy to be here as a witness to what will be – no matter the score – another historic day for the Lionesses. They could be the first England squad to bring a World Cup home since 1966 and what makes it particularly special is that I look around the stadium and it’s not just women and young girls watching, it’s young boys and their dads, uncles, and grandfathers. The women’s game has totally changed. It’s something that we've been trying to accomplish for many years and this current team of Lionesses have been able to achieve it.
Of course, there’s a lot that still needs changing. We are still nowhere near equal pay or equality in terms of environment, training and resources, which I'm passionate about working towards. We need to start booking out the Old Traffords, the Stanford Bridges – legendary stadiums. But with this World Cup, this team and this swing of momentum… I really believe it’s going to get us there soon.
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