Captain Flaherty Calm & Focused (Gilly Flaherty Interview)

Gilly Flaherty will lead West Ham out for a fourth Wembley FA Cup final in five years, but insists it is nothing like routine. A seven-time winner with Arsenal and Chelsea, and holder of 22 pieces of silverware including a UEFA Women’s Cup medal, she left Chelsea after twelve years at the top because she wanted to be playing regularly, and says it was the best decision she could have made once Matt Beard made her captain. She recalls the 7-1 defeat at Manchester City in West Ham’s fourth WSL match as awful and humiliating, and then as a blessing that defined the season. Three sidebars record Emma Hayes’s 2015 pre-match instruction she will repeat at Wembley, her debt to Beard, and a semi-final penalty she changed her mind about twice.