It took the England team captain Millie Bright many years to choose between her two main passions in life – horses and football.
Growing up in the former pit village of Killamarsh in north-east Derbyshire, the 29-year-old spent her early years around her family’s stable yard of horses and was riding by the age of three.
She has previously said horses were her “life rather than a hobby”, and she attended competitions with her family every week. But as her football career progressed, she was forced to make a choice. She is now barred from horse riding by her insurers.
“She was always so driven and, eventually, she knew what she wanted to do which was to play professional football,” said Sheila Edmunds, the president and cofounder of the Doncaster Rovers Belles, where Bright played from 2009 to 2015.
“I think it was the season where we won the league that made her realise what she wanted to do, and gave her the hunger for it. She’s a quality player, and it makes me really proud to watch her in the World Cup and think wow, we had a little bit of input into her development.”
Bright was nine years old when she stumbled into football by chance after going to watch a friend training for the Killamarsh Dynamos, her local club, simply because she was bored.
“We played her up front and in that first year she scored 80 goals,” said the club’s chair, Mick Atherton. “She wasn’t the tallest but she was really bubbly and she wanted to get involved in everything at training, she was always the one setting the balls out.”
By 12 she had been scouted by Sheffield United for their academy team, before she signed to the Doncaster Rovers Belles in 2009 at the age of 16, and eventually Chelsea in 2014.
“We wanted to bring in some new young players so I went over to Sheffield and I saw Millie. From the minute she came in, even just as a youngster, she was totally involved, a cracking girl,” said John Buckley, Bright’s manager during her time at Doncaster, when she also juggled two part-time jobs as a fitness instructor and a horse groom.
“If I’m being really honest, I knew she’d be a good player, but did I think she would be the captain of England? No. But what she’s done, year in year out, is just get better and better and better. So hats off to her.”
Buckley recalled how Bright’s parents and grandfather would come to every one of her games. Bright has previously described how her grandfather, Arthur, is the person she relies on most for honest feedback on her performance.
“I don’t think he’s ever missed a game, he follows her everywhere,” said Atherton. “He’s out in Australia now. In fact, there’s 17 of her family out there, and they’re all out there for five weeks. They had all booked tickets all the way through to the final.”
Bright, a defender, has stepped up as captain of the squad after Leah Williamson was forced to miss the tournament due to injury, and has helped lead the team to England’s first World Cup final since 1966.
“I could always see her being a leader,” said Buckley. “We had some more experienced girls on the team who could be brutal with how they spoke to the other girls but she quite easily took it on the chin.
“She was quite quiet, but would do anything you asked her to do on the pitch and could be a handful. Bear in mind I put these girls in when they were just babies and we were playing against good teams – she very rarely let you down.”
The Killamarsh Dynamos clubhouse will be full to the brim on Sunday morning as locals and current team members gather to watch the historic match in one of the clubs that helped pave the way.
“What Millie has done is fantastic. We’re looking to name our football pitches after her,” said Atherton.
“Our girls can now see the pathway from here all the way through to what she has achieved. But she is still really grounded, she never forgets the village, she comes back regularly and all her family still live here.
“She’s taken all of our girls’ teams down to St George’s Park and they’ve all met the other England players – she’s made it real for them.”
Watching Bright lead the squad in Australia makes Edmunds proud to see how far the women’s game has come, but also to see a star player reaping the rewards of years of hard work.
“This is the pinnacle, this is what 50-odd years of women playing football have strived for, and now it’s in touching distance,” she said.
“To see Millie Bright where she is now and, fingers crossed, to see her lift that trophy on Sunday … what an adventure she’s been on. She thoroughly deserves it.”
