Into The Grainger Zone (Gemma Grainger interview)

Wales turned to a UEFA Pro Licence coach with more than a decade in the England set-up, and Gemma Grainger starts by explaining where she is from: Saturdays at Middlesbrough with her father and uncle, the pub, the pool table, the walk to the ground, the programme. Ted Copeland asked at a Durham academy whether anyone fancied coaching primary schools and she said yes, at eighteen. Given ten days between appointment and her first camp, she video-called every player and every member of staff before it. She credits Julie Chipchase, who had just died, with the opportunity and the mentoring at Leeds. She works with a Middlesbrough charity, Rubies, after reading that girls from the town were least likely of anyone to have a professional career.