Chambers’ Challengers (Kelly Chambers interview)

Reading have finished fourth and fifth in the last two WSL seasons and reached an FA Cup semi-final, and Kelly Chambers is adamant the Arsenal-Chelsea-Manchester City stronghold can be broken. She is candid that Reading cannot simply spend their way there, splitting the club’s growing investment between players, infrastructure and staff, but insists the gap is not a million miles wide and that the building phase has to turn into achieving now. This summer’s recruitment gave the squad a Nordic accent – Rakel Honnudottir, then the Norwegians Kristine Leine, Lisa-Marie Karlseng Utland and Amalie Vevle Eikeland. The second-youngest manager in the division at 33 and also the club’s director of women’s and girls’ football, Chambers recalls running effectively every department at once, returning to work a fortnight after her daughter was born, and once putting a foot through a bin at half-time.