Player Interview: Aileen Whelan — Summer of Success

The Lincoln striker looks back on what she calls quite possibly her greatest achieving summer: two England under-23 caps, a gold medal with Team GB at the World University Games in Kazan, a step up to the FA WSL and the completion of a masters degree, with a Continental Cup final against Arsenal still to come. Aileen Whelan says six months earlier she thought facing Arsenal with Nottingham Forest in the FA Women’s Cup would be her last meeting with them, and that a 0-0 league draw makes the final genuinely open. She describes Great Britain’s aim in Kazan as simply bettering a group-stage exit in 2011 before belief grew in the quarter-finals. Nottingham Trent supported the balance of study and football; her masters is in applied child psychology. She joins Notts County next season.