Baller Devi (Bala Devi interview)

The first Indian woman to sign a professional contract overseas arrived in Glasgow for a week-long trial in late 2019 and remembers mostly the cold, the wind and the rain – and wanting to stay anyway. It was, she says, the first trial of her career; she had always been invited to join teams. Rangers signed her in January on an eighteen-month deal, and she played in a 3-0 win over Hearts before COVID-19 ended the season after a single match and left her alone in a shared flat when her flatmates went home. Twice her country’s footballer of the year, with 65 goals in 80 internationals, she talks about training five or six days a week for the first time, and about wanting girls in India to see that a door has opened.