View From The Field: Ward’s Words (Helen Ward column)

The Watford forward and Wales record goalscorer marks her hundredth cap, won against France on 8 April 2022. Helen Ward is straightforwardly proud of joining a century club containing Jess Fishlock, Loren Dykes and Sophie Ingle – and, days later, Natasha Harding – but the column’s real subject is how long it took and what it cost. The first fifty caps came in five years; the second fifty took eight and a half, with two children arriving in between, and there were stretches where she thought it might never happen at all, which made getting it over the line as much relief as celebration. She is warmest about the people who made it possible: her husband Matt, her mother, and children Emily and Charlie in the stands in France on a Friday night with no guarantee she would play.