View From The Field: Kerys Kicks (Kerys Harrop column)

Birmingham City’s captain writes at the end of a rollercoaster year in which a top-four side has become one fighting relegation, made harder by her own injury. The bulk of the column is a decade comparison drawn from her own pay packet: in 2009 she was 19, part-time at Birmingham, on travel expenses and perhaps 50 to 100 pounds a game, rooming with Toni Duggan on the England scholarship at Loughborough and travelling back twice a week to train for two hours. The WSL did not yet exist. Now she trains five days a week at the men’s facility and makes a living from the game. A closing honours list names Beth England as her player of the year and Joe Montemurro as manager of the year.