![]() ![]() But, look, this isn’t a new thing.” The ACL injury – a tear or sprain of the anterior cruciate ligament that attaches thigh and shin bones – is endemic in women’s football. Striker Beth Mead has the same injury and has been “trying to fight her way back in time. It’s devastating that Williamson can’t play in the World Cup because of an ACL injury, she says. She notices on the table at the photographic studio where we meet a picture of her friend and former Arsenal teammate Leah Williamson on the cover of the Guardian’s Saturday magazine. I can hear her Football Focus voiceover in my head – “We’ve got a lot to get through today.” There’s the forthcoming World Cup in Australia to discuss, the issue of investment in women’s sport, and the pay disparity for female footballers. But,” she pauses, “what’s that quote about taking the horse to the water?” ![]() So, it was all so raw.” The conversations have started, but: “Yeah. “Because do you think we ever spoke about this as a family? Now, all of a sudden, I’m sharing this with the world and she has read stuff in my book she didn’t know that I was seeing as a kid what I went through, the feelings. ![]() Was it difficult for her mother, Carol, when the book came out? “Oh my gosh!” She shakes her head like I don’t know the half of it. She is still experiencing the turbulence that followed. It told the story of her traumatic childhood. Then, six months ago, Scott published an extraordinary memoir, How (Not) to Be Strong. In 2021, she became the first female presenter in the 46-year history of Football Focus, BBC One’s weekly TV football look-ahead. She captained Arsenal’s women’s team, played for England, accruing 140 caps, took a degree in broadcast media, and segued, seemingly with ease, into her dazzling career as a pundit. Fast-forward through 30 years and it’s a fairytale. She seized the opportunity, took the bus to training several times a week and slogged her little guts out. It was 1992, the same year her father, Tony, left, taking everything, including the family television set. She was the kid with the cautious smile, known round the estate as “Ronnie Scott’s little sister”. Aged eight, she was spotted by an Arsenal talent scout playing with the boys in the football cage, a fenced concrete pitch, next to her council block in Poplar, east London. On the face of it, she certainly has done all right. I’m good today.’” Actually, I was thinking of the way children create worlds to self-soothe, but I am struck by how on guard she is against pity. So, like that thought you just had of, ‘That’s so cute,’ I’m like, ‘No, I’m all right. “I hate the idea of people ever feeling sorry for me. “No, it’s all right,” she says with a flick of panic. I lift my hand to interject with a question and Scott misunderstands this as an unwelcome gesture of sympathy. “Because I grew up in an environment where we didn’t show love. It helped somehow as she tried to block out the sound of her father’s tearing rage against her mother in the room next door. Something about the way the manufacturers had captured the character’s woe in his downcast expression allowed her to look at him and feel the true depth of his sadness. ![]() She loved her teddies, told them about her day, cuddled them for comfort. “Am I going to be all right?” she asked them. A s a child, Alex Scott gathered her Winnie-the-Pooh teddies on her bed. ![]()
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