Simply the Best (Kelly Smith)

A career interview with the player the magazine rates the best England has had in twenty years, who retired from international football in February 2015 aged 36 with 117 caps and 46 goals. Smith describes an ankle injury early the following season leaving her emotionally in a bad place and considering quitting outright, before deciding she did not want to go out injured. She returned to be instrumental in Arsenal’s 2016 FA Cup win over Chelsea at Wembley, which she rates her favourite Arsenal title and which Vic Akers says they might not have won without her. She recalls paying to play and driving to games in a Ford Fiesta, briefly managing Arsenal in 2014, and a run of quotes from across two decades of the magazine’s archive accompanies the piece.