Do you have a special place for your medal?
I know this sounds like a teeny flex, but Viv and I have just built a cabinet that’s got both of our Euros medals in it, along with my MBE, Sports Personality of the Year award, Viv’s Player of the Year award and then both of our WSL winners’ medals. So the Champions League medal lives in there. It’s just nice to be able to look sometimes at what we’ve achieved. You’ve just got to embrace those moments.
In your footballing life, when did you feel furthest away from being a Champions League winner?
It actually wasn’t that long ago. It was in 2023 when we got knocked out of Round One qualifying against Paris FC. I wasn’t fully fit at that moment, as I was still rehabbing my ACL.
To go out in Round One and then the next year you’re starting at Round One again, it makes you think, “Wow, we’ve got a long way to go here.” Now I think we’re the only club that’s started in Round One and gone on to win the trophy. It just goes to show that you can be at your lowest low, but if the team puts their minds to it, you can go and achieve big things. You’re actually closer than you ever thought.
How old were you when we won the trophy for the first time in 2007, and how much did you know about it?
I joined Arsenal in 2017, so ten years later. Only Alex Scott was left from that 2007 squad, but I still looked up to Kelly and Yanks. Kelly Smith was my idol and now I call her a friend. Never in a million years would I have thought that’s where we’d be. I never even thought I’d come and play for a club like Arsenal.
To see how happy Kelly was after we won it again in Lisbon was what it’s all about. I’m so glad she got to be a part of that day. It’s also nice to see how much it meant to everyone. Kim was so emotional after we’d won the semi-final against Lyon, and she’s not one to show her emotions normally. But when moments like that hit you, you’ve got to let them out. As our longest-serving player in the squad, she deserved everything.
That 2007 squad were the pioneers, the ones who set the tone for us as a football club. It shows how much the game has evolved: they won it at Meadow Park and we brought the trophy home to celebrate with 10,000 people in front of the Emirates.