Still Soaring (Tori Williams interview)

Ten years into the WSL, Tori Williams says the anniversary made her feel old, then admits she is proud, and then undercuts it: she has not won anything, has never been in a superstar team, and doubts anyone is interested. What follows is one of the sharpest accounts in the run of what the league’s professionalisation has cost. Having come through Doncaster Belles and Sunderland, she argues for welfare criteria on clubs stepping up while conceding players find the system unjust, and describes a league where every game punishes anyone who does not perform. She explains how a squad that had just lost at Bristol went to Kingsmeadow and ended Chelsea’s 33-match unbeaten run, then won four in a row to a highest-ever sixth.