She Kicks a Beat: Fern Whelan

Fern Whelan’s playing career was shaped by injury, but the heights she reached cannot be taken away: cup wins, England caps, individual honours and, she suggests, the bonds that mattered most. She was named FA Women’s Young Player of the Year in May 2008 and captained an England Under-20 side at that year’s World Cup in Chile – a squad including Steph Houghton and Toni Duggan – reaching the senior squad at twenty and winning her first cap two years later. The story she tells at length is not about football at all: a UEFA Women’s Cup trip to Belgium where she, Jill Scott and Natasha Dowie practised dance routines in a hotel room, were overheard, and ended up performing Backstreet’s Back in full make-up for the rest of the squad. She still remembers the moves.