Leah Williamson: ‘My mum used to put the headlights on for me to run’

Leah Williamson walks out on to the pitch that bears her name at Newport Pagnell FC, where she began playing football. Photograph: Jed Leicester

Leah Williamson pauses and looks around at the girls kitted out in their green Newport Pagnell kit. “I’m 27 now: when I was their age, I didn’t have a girls’ team to join,” she says. “You go back another however many years to when my mum was playing and she had to cut her hair and pretend to be a boy.

“We’ve just come so far and I’m happy that I get to watch it and be part of it in that way. It drives me to keep playing and be part of the team.”