View From The Field: Meet Wardy (Helen Ward)

Introducing herself as the magazine’s new columnist, Reading striker and Wales Players’ Player of the Year Helen Ward describes herself as first and foremost a wife and mother, who also finds time to be a footballer, freelance journalist and student, supported by a family who take the reins of childcare. Her best attribute is a desire to work hard for the team and a knack of finding the right place at the right time; her worst, a lack of self-belief that takes a lot of self-talk to overcome. On Wales she is direct: often asked why she plays for them when she was not born or raised there, she says that from the moment she walked into their training environment seven years ago she knew she was Welsh, and wears the badge with pride.