Issue
February 2016 39 articles indexed
Read She Kicks issue 33 in full
Column / Opinion p.3
Jen O'Neill opens the February issue on a washed-out winter: fixtures lost, pitches damaged and non-league men's football hit just as hard, which leads her to ask whether the National Game should be discussing…
News pp.4–7
The February news pages record a busy winter. Mark Sampson signs a two-year England extension to 2019 and the Lionesses accept an invitation to the inaugural SheBelieves Cup against the USA, Germany and France.…
Interview pp.8–11
Fran Kirby looks ahead to her first full season at Chelsea after a 2015 that took her from Reading to a World Cup goal for England and then to a record WSL transfer. She…
Interview pp.12–14
In his third year in charge, Nick Cushing sets out how Manchester City built a squad. Year one brought experience and a winning mentality in Steph Houghton, Karen Bardsley, Jill Scott and Toni Duggan;…
News p.15
She Kicks compiles an A to Z of a frantic transfer window covering December 2015 and January 2016, listing roughly eighty moves in and out of the English, Scottish, Scandinavian and American leagues. Among…
Interview p.16
Sunderland captain Steph Bannon, who combines teaching with playing, explains why re-signing was never in doubt after leading the Black Cats to fourth in their first WSL 1 season. She dismisses talk of second…
Interview p.17
Wales captain Sophie Ingle describes settling in at Liverpool after leaving Bristol City, a move that lets her focus fully on football. She reports a warm welcome, an initiation still in the pipeline and…
Interview p.19
At nineteen, Everton defender Gabby George is preparing for a third season at the club as Andy Spence returns to plot promotion back to WSL 1. She credits Spence with developing young players and…
Interview p.20
Seventeen-year-old midfielder Chloe Peplow, a Birmingham City Centre of Excellence and Academy graduate, has signed a two-year professional contract with the Blues and hopes 2016 sets up her future. She wants to mark out…
Interview p.21
Sheffield FC Ladies captain Carla Ward looks ahead to the club's WSL 2 debut, having joined five years earlier precisely because of the ambition and off-field planning that got them there. She is frank…
Column / Opinion p.22
Helen Ward continues her players' column with a piece on pre-season, the time of year she loves to hate. She describes the mix of excitement, nerves and dread, and the recurring doubts about form,…
Interview pp.23–25
United States head coach Jill Ellis reflects on winning the World Cup barely twelve months into the job and looks ahead to Rio. She describes a position with zero margin for error, where one…
Interview p.26
Twenty-year-old Ada Hegerberg, fresh from the Norwegian Golden Ball awarded to the country's player of the year regardless of gender, discusses a season of thirty-five goals in nineteen games for Lyon. She names her…
Interview p.27
Jorge Vilda, a former youth-team player at both Real Madrid and Barcelona, describes rising from Spain's Under-17s to the senior job in six years. He inherited La Roja in July 2015 when Ignacio Quereda's…
Interview p.28
Nineteen-year-old Germany striker Pauline Bremer, at Lyon since July, has taken the move in her stride with five goals in ten games despite competing with Ada Hegerberg, Lotta Schelin and Eugenie Le Sommer. She…
Interview p.29
Sweden's Stina Blackstenius is assessed by two coaches and then speaks for herself. Jorge Vilda, whose Spain side lost the 2015 Under-19 European final to a Blackstenius brace, calls her head and shoulders above…
Interview pp.30–31
Stacey Copeland retired from football at twenty-nine after years of injuries and immediately picked up boxing gloves. Now thirty-four, she is a European silver medallist, Nations Cup gold medallist and three-time ABA national champion…
Poster pp.32–33
A double-page pull-out poster of Scotland midfielder Kim Little, photographed by Lorraine Hill. The image is a close, low action shot in the Scotland change strip - black shorts and shirt with pink sleeves…
Interview p.34
Arsenal and England striker Danielle Carter answers ten questions by tweet. She is happy with a new deal and with a squad that has kept its core and added quality, and jokes about welcoming…
News p.35
Middlesex FA's women and girls section reports a strong season. The Football League Trust programme is in its third year, with Brentford FC CST and Barnet running sessions aimed at those not already playing,…
Run-of-page feature pp.36–38
Kieran Theivam reports from Baltimore on the fourth NWSL College Draft, where almost two hundred college players competed for forty places across four rounds. For the first time two English players were selected, both…
Interview p.39
Seattle Reign head coach and general manager Laura Harvey answers the Coach Kicks questionnaire. She says she loves the job and dislikes nothing about it, and names Kelly Smith as the player she wishes…
News p.40
Wilf Frith surveys the FA Women's Premier League at the end of January. Preston and Nottingham Forest are separated only by goal difference in the Northern title race, with Stoke and Blackburn three points…
Interview p.40
Chester FC Women were assembled in the summer of 2015 after detailed work on the finances of running an open-age team, led by Chester FC Community Trust and its chief executive Jon McCarthy. Charlotte…
Interview p.41
Derby County's Sam Griffiths is frank about a bad spell that has damaged the club's chances in a six-way FA Women's Premier League Northern title race, saying some results were unlucky but others were…
News p.41
Cardiff and Swindon complete the FA Women's Premier League Cup last eight with wins either side of the festive break over Forest Green and Old Actonians. Enfield and Newcastle are the last two through…
Interview p.42
Amy Notschild joined Stevenage aged eleven and, in her twelfth season with the club, hopes to see them promoted to the FA Women's Premier League for the first time as Eastern League champions. She…
Interview p.43
Former Scotland youth international and Hibernian full-back Clare Williamson believes 2016 can be the year the club finally displaces Glasgow City. She is candid that nobody in the squad was pleased with second place,…
Other p.44
A single-page gallery of seven captioned photographs from December 2015 and January 2016. Altrincham's Liss Taylor celebrates a hat-trick in a ten-nil cup win over Chester City; Pilar Garcia and Rebecca Barren contest the…
Interview p.45
Ashford Town (Middlesex) striker Ashley Cheatley has scored forty-eight goals by the halfway point of a season in which her side are marching to the Greater London Women's Football League Division 3 title. The…
Other p.46
The We Kick slot visits Liverpool's Under-11 girls' Centre of Excellence seven-a-side team. They train three times a week, playing futsal on Mondays and training on Tuesdays and Thursdays, with Saturday matches against other…
Other p.47
The Born Kicking slot puts its questionnaire to sisters Emma, ten, and Katie, eight, of East Grinstead Girls, each answering in turn. Emma plays in defence for her school's girls' and mixed teams and…
Interview pp.48–49
Two-time Champions League winner Lara Dickenmann, over a hundred caps for Switzerland, talks music and career with Chris Brookes. Her mother ran a fitness studio and recorded her own tapes, so she grew up…
Other pp.50–51
The closing instalment of the knee injuries series covers articular cartilage, the smooth lining at the ends of the femur and tibia that reduces friction and disperses load. Dr Claire Minshull explains that in…
Interview pp.52–53
Bristol City and England Under-23 goalkeeper Mary Earps details her matchday routine. She keeps food identical home or away: muesli or porridge, scrambled eggs with spinach, tomatoes and mushrooms, then salmon or chicken with…
Interview p.54
Aston Villa and Northern Ireland right-back Hayley Crackle takes the Car Quiz. She drives a Vauxhall Adam, named simply Adam after a previous Corsa called Carol, and reckons that as a footballer it would…
Interview p.55
Scotland captain and record cap holder Gemma Fay, on 189 appearances and newly recruited by Glasgow City, discusses the armband. She would like to describe herself as an empowering captain, having learned from experienced…
Column / Opinion pp.56–57
Sue Webster, whose daughter has played for the same club since she was six, sets out what nine years of grassroots volunteering actually involves: thousands of miles driven, Saturday mornings and Monday evenings given…
Interview p.58
Lorraine Clark, thirty, took up refereeing thirteen years ago on a PE teacher's suggestion after deciding she would not play at a high level, and has been on the FIFA list for four seasons.…
