Akers Set the Standard (Vic Akers)

An interview with the most successful manager in the women’s game, who moved upstairs in 2009 after 22 seasons at the club he founded in 1987, having been an Arsenal community officer so impressed by the girls playing on the indoor pitch at Highbury that he set up a team for them. Arsenal Ladies climbed to the Premier League by 1992 and won the Treble in that first top-flight season; by 2009 Akers had taken them to 32 major titles. He recalls players paying to play, telling them they had to become more like athletes, and beating Doncaster Belles 3-0 in the 1993 FA Cup final as the turning point. He names Marieanne Spacey, Julie Fleeting, Kelly Smith, Katie Chapman and Faye White among his best signings, and Fara Williams as the one that got away.