Arsenal Women have won the FA Cup 14 times. That is a record in women’s football in England. The second most successful club in the competition’s history is Southampton (not affiliated with the Southampton in WSL2, this Southampton are in the National League) with eight FA Cup wins.
However, the Gunners have not lifted the trophy since 2016 when Danielle Carter scored the winning goal against Chelsea at Wembley. Leah Williamson and Katie McCabe, as well as attacking coach Kelly Smith, were part of the team that day in May 2016. Arseblog News asked Renee Slegers whether she uses Arsenal’s history as fuel to motivate her players ahead of this weekend’s FA Cup Fourth Round tie at home to Aston Villa.
‘We spoke about it briefly this morning with the players, basically framing it exactly like you do now, so you could have done it for us a little bit earlier! What I would like to do, which I haven’t done yet, because like I said, it’s busy, and looking in the here and now, and looking at the next game, but I would like to watch that game back.
‘I would like to get moments in my days, in my weeks, to actually see those things, the football that has been at Arsenal, but also all the connection that we have to the community. There’s so many more things.’
This week, Arsenal released ‘[The Only in the Land](https://www.arsenal.com/news/only-land-watch-2425-uwcl-doc-finale)‘ a documentary looking back at last year’s Champions League triumph. Arseblog News asked Slegers whether she has watched the documentary back yet.
‘I think the team has done an incredible job putting the documentary together. It’s a fantastic piece of work, and it will forever be there. It tells the story of our journey last season, and the ultimate thing that we did at the end was winning the Champions League.
‘We will forever have that, and that’s fantastic. I’ve not watched it back yet, I think I will watch it back at some point, I’ve seen bits and bobs. But of course I always like to understand what’s happened before, and this is very short-term, but also longer-term, so from 1987 up until now, and what that means for us here now, the legacy that’s there and how we look to extend legacy, because that’s actually what we’re trying to do here.
‘So I always try to put that into perspective, bigger picture, what’s been before us, what are we doing now, and what does that mean for the future.’
_This season, I have been interviewing former players from across Arsenal Women’s history for the matchday programme, Sunday’s interview is with Danielle Carter, who scored the winner in the 2016 Final and it’s fair to say we touch on that final in depth._