Other
She Kicks Back: EURO 2001
She Kicks, issue 90, July 2025 pp.90–94
A five-page heritage retrospective on England’s return to a major tournament at EURO 2001, their first since the 1995 World Cup, in an era when media passes were requested by fax and eight teams went straight from the group stage to the semi-finals. Hope Powell, 34 and three years in charge, had taken her amateurs there via a 4-1 aggregate play-off win over Ukraine, Kelly Smith scoring off the bench in Kiev the day after her 22nd birthday. In a heatwave across Erfurt and Jena they drew with Russia through Angie Banks’s goal, lost to Sweden, and finished against holders Germany. Faye White remembers sizing opponents up in hotel lifts and arriving in designer trouser suits like something out of Men in Black. Marieanne Spacey’s final England touch was a goal-line clearance. A Press Gang panel adds recollections from Tony Leighton and Jen O’Neill.