Soccer (Football)
Fara Williams and the next step for women's football
Having seen the women’s game change drastically over her career, Fara Williams is retiring. It’s the end of an era, but also the beginning of a new age.
There are few generational figures in football; players who epitomise an era in the game, and who are, in every sense of the massively overused adjective, iconic. Pele, Cruyff, Ronaldo, Beckham, Marta – these are footballers who speak to a generation of fans and players alike, and who helped form the foundations of our love of the sport. For all those involved with women’s football, Fara Williams is one of those players.
A two-time FA Women’s Super League winner [with Liverpool], Women’s FA Cup winner [with Everton], World Cup bronze medallist and the most-capped England player ever [and that includes the men’s game], Williams has experienced the evolution of women’s football first-hand. When her retirement was announced in April, many were surprised – it had felt like the day would never come. Williams had the aura of an immortal footballer, a player whose talent could never fade.
Football has given me everything and I’ve given everything to the game. I sacrificed everything for it
Cruelly, it was factors outside Williams’ control that finally forced her to call time on her playing days. Last year, the 37-year-old was diagnosed with a kidney condition and the subsequent treatment, which included heavy doses of steroids, “broke” the player and made maintaining fitness a struggle. This eventually led to the realisation that her “body is done” and it was time to retire.
This is Williams’ millionth Zoom interview of the week, just a few days after breaking news of her retirement, but there’s no let-up in the energy and honesty that has won over journalists throughout her career. As we talk, a bunch of flowers arrive – the latest of many gifts Williams has received this week – and she gestures for them to be placed to the side, no doubt adding to an enormous pile of bouquets. Flowers sorted, we begin to unpack a life in football and a 23-year playing career.
"Football has given me everything," says Williams
© Greg Funnell
Williams was born in 1984 and raised on an estate in Battersea, south London. It was while playing football in the cage in the middle of the estate she built the foundations of her record-setting, 172-cap England career. “I’d finish school, quickly do any homework, then it would be football,” she recalls. “I’d be out there kicking the ball for hours on end until it got dark. Then I’d repeat it every single day until I got into a team.”
I stayed at the top for 23 years, even when people judged me and questioned whether I was what ‘professional’ should look like
Williams’ obvious skills saw her join Chelsea Ladies’ under-14s team at the age of 12, before making her way up the ranks to the first team; in 2001, she moved to Charlton Athletic. She was at Charlton when, in 2001, England women’s manager Hope Powell gave Williams her debut in the national side. But the young star’s success on the pitch hid a distressing truth off it: at just 17, she was homeless following a family breakdown. She spent the next six years living in hostels before eventually moving out of London and establishing some stability.
The desire and dedication shown by Williams during those early days practising on her estate have remained a constant throughout her career, and staying at the highest level of the game for so long is one of her proudest achievements. “I was in the England seniors set-up for 18 years, able to stay at the top throughout my 23 years of playing, even when people were judging me and questioning whether I was what ‘professional’ should look like. I always gave my teammates 100 percent.”
Another Williams trademark is unwavering resilience, an essential requirement for female football players of her generation. With no professional contracts available, these women had to balance several jobs while driving around the country chasing a dream that, until very recently, didn’t pay the bills. For Williams, there was the added challenge of not having a home or a family support network around her. But football filled that void and two individuals in particular – Hope Powell and Mo Marley, coach of Everton Ladies and later England – supported her through an extremely difficult time.
Williams remembers their kindness fondly. “I think Hope saw something in me that I didn’t see in myself,” she says. “I knew I had talent, but she tried to get me to channel it in the right way. I was a loose kid, hyperactive and she tried to get me to understand that [despite] the talent I had, if I continued behaving that way then I probably wouldn’t achieve much. She made me take things seriously and encouraged me to do my coaching badges and get a better understanding of the game. That gave me an advantage.”
Peak performer: Williams won her 100th England cap in March 2012
© Greg Funnell
It wasn’t only on the pitch that Powell provided support: “Hope was there for me when I was homeless – not just over the phone, she was physically there for me. We’d meet regularly, she’d bring me food and she just made sure I was OK. That was so important to me in those hard moments.”
In 2004, under the guidance of Marley, Williams secured a move to Everton, commuting from London initially and staying with the coach and her husband Keith, before eventually relocating to Merseyside and getting a job alongside playing football. “They were Mum and Dad for the weekend and were just brilliant,” she recalls. “Mo also taught me some real core values in terms of the football environment that she created. And she did everything for not only me but the whole team.”
Someone said to me, ‘It’s like you’re divorcing the game.’ It does feel like that... a break-up
Individuals such as Powell, Marley and Tony Leighton – a legendary women’s football journalist who Williams referenced in her retirement statement – helped shape the modern women’s game in England; it certainly wouldn’t be securing multi-million-pound sponsorship and TV deals if not for their hard work.
Women’s football has evolved dramatically during Williams’ career. No more arriving at stadiums without proper toilet facilities for women, with empty press boxes and with dodgy pitches that make so much as kicking a ball difficult. But there’s still a lot of work to be done to ensure the whole game – even the clubs at the top – benefit from those changes.
Skill set: keepy-uppies for the camera
© Greg Funnell
For Williams, the biggest gamechanger has been the development in coaching and the opportunity for players to go full-time. “Players look like athletes now,” she says. “They’re eating the right way, and their strength and conditioning is so much better. It’s the technical side of the game we still need to work on.”
Coaching, tactics and technicality are mentioned throughout our hour-long chat. Williams is a football obsessive and has realised that coaching is where her future mainly lies. She’s currentlyon a coaching program with England’s Football Association and working with the nation’s under-17’s women’s team.
This new generation of female players is experiencing a completely different world, with academy support and a focused football education from an early age. Williams hopes they make the most of these opportunities. “Being as old as I am, I was lucky enough to play with some of the greats in a time when the game wasn’t big,” she says. The veteran goes on to reel off a list of names, some of whom are now household names in England, such as Casey Stoney and Alex Scott, but also others who slipped out of football to take alternative jobs and who are now almost just memories lost to the game.
“Some of the players I played with were too old at the time to have the opportunities that I did towards the end of my career,” Williams explains. “But in the men’s game we see these players working as pundits and as managers. The older generation of footballers are remembered because [the younger players] relate to them and talk about them. It’s important for the next generation to remember those who came before and put them in the great position they’re in now.”
A signed Reading shirt, presented at Williams' final match
© Greg Funnell
Williams says it’s also critical that they seize this moment. “I want them to take advantage of packed stadiums, of being paid to do what they love and deserve, of TV and media, of good coaching and analysis, of recovery strategies, and of all that I and players before me didn’t have. Those players would give everything to have that again. The new generation can show how good female players can be with the right resources.”
This impassioned plea to the future of women’s football provides the perfect opportunity to ask Williams to somehow summarise what the game has given her. “It’s given me everything and I’ve given everything to the game,” she reflects. “I sacrificed everything for football. I’ve travelled the world with football. I’ve seen more than I ever could have imagined. I’ve got lifelong friends from the game. I’m in love with football, and someone said to me the other day, ‘It’s like you’re divorcing the game.’ It does feel like that. I’m going through a break-up.”
So, where would she be without it? “Probably working in an ice-cream van,” she laughs. “I used to want to do that as a kid. Every time I saw the van, I wanted one and I said to myself, ‘One day I’ll work in that van and have as many ice creams as I want.’ So maybe I should buy a van.”