Istill remember my first experience of the Euros. It was 2005 and I was in my little Peugeot 106, driving to the Etihad, to watch England’s opening game as a fan. I was 18. My grandma bought me that car for £400, but we were on the motorway and it was screeching. “Jill, change gear!” said my friends. “It’s only got four gears!” I told them. When I joined Everton the following year, I drove on that motorway a lot. We were part-time and had the last training slot, 8-10pm on Tuesdays and Thursdays. That was women’s football. Back in Sunderland at 2am, then I’d coach at Gateshead College the next day. Later, I commuted from Loughborough University to Everton – no wonder I never finished my degree! This summer, though, I was playing in the final of Euro 2022, my 10th tournament, in front of 87,000 at Wembley. All I was thinking was, ‘You can’t let people down’. My story is probably similar to that of a lot of girls. I started playing football in the back lanes around my house in Sunderland, when I was about five. I was the only girl, playing against boys. I joined a local boys’ team called Fulwell, but when I got to nine years old, they said that girls couldn’t play for them any more. It was a pivotal moment – I thought I might have to stop playing football. But my mum found a girls’ team, and I went to play for them.
I didn’t follow women’s football until a leaflet came through our door when I was a teenager. I remember it had a photograph of the England captain, Faye White. I joined Sunderland’s centre of excellence, then made the step up to the women’s team at 14, playing against 30-year-olds. I had an obsessive personality - I always wanted to be better. Even if
