Counting Down to Copeland (Melanie Copeland interview)

Melanie Copeland – the former Melanie Reay, newly married to her partner Chris – is building a squad on the wrong side of the WSL’s haves and have-nots, and is clear about what she is selling. Sunderland’s identity is North East: hard-working, passionate people, and she says so to overseas signings such as Deadline Day arrivals Simona Koren and Zaneta Wyne on day one. There is classroom work every week, pre-game presentations, analysis and goal-setting. Fourteen years coaching, including a Gateshead College academy that produced Carly Telford, Demi Stokes and Jill Scott, has left her impatient with the assistant’s role she once held. She laughs off talk of the England job as premature, notes that she was never paid a penny as a player, and hopes what her generation sacrificed built the professional game the next one has.