Kirsty Pealling’s Arsenal legacy is unimpeachable. The Hackney-born full back broke into the first team at the age of 14 and remained a fixture in the starting XI until her retirement at the age of 31.
Her precise number of appearances for the club is not known, because records in the early years following the club’s formation in 1987 are scarce. But there is a fair chance that Pealling pulled on the Arsenal shirt more than any other female player.
Having racked up more than 30 trophies during her Gunners career, few can claim to be more decorated.
Pealling’s love of football started in her community: “I just grew up playing near my flats, I grew up on a council estate in Hackney,” she says. “I played on Orwell Court just off Pownall Road.
"Growing up, most of my friends were boys and I had a brother who was five years older than me who I tagged along with, which drove him mad! We just used to play in a square behind our flats every day after school and during the holidays.”
As she grew up, Pealling’s love of playing football only grew too.
“At primary school I played during playtime; there were a couple of other girls who played. I wasn’t allowed to play for the school team and there wasn’t a girls’ team.
"I went to secondary school at Haggerston and there were a few girls who liked playing football. We just asked our PE teacher if we could play in the sports hall at lunchtime and soon we started playing friendlies against other schools.”
At that time, Arsenal Ladies had just been formed and had a strong presence in Hackney.
We were entered into the Metropolitan five-a-side competition as a school team and we qualified so we started playing against girl’s clubs – I didn’t know there were girl’s clubs around. We played a semi-final at the Britannia Leisure Centre in Hackney, and that’s where Vic Akers saw me. I was 13 and Vic spoke to my parents. Later that week I went to the Marble Halls at Highbury and never looked back!”
Kirsty’s talent and a lack of organised youth football for girls meant she trained with women more than twice her age from the start. “I went to the first training session and I thought, ‘I’m not sure about this!’ I was 13 and a lot of the other women were around 30. My mum told me to bide my time."
Soon she began to feel more at home. “I met Michelle Curley, Sarah Ryan and Sarah Mulligan, who were part of the YTS scheme. They were around 17 or 18 so still older but not that much older. They settled me in. The older players were lovely too.”
Having forged her talents on concrete courts behind her flats and the school hall, Pealling had to learn a more organised form of the sport she loved.
"I hadn’t really played 11-a-side football before, so I was totally naive. I hadn’t even played with the offside rule before! I played a few reserve games for Arsenal on the right wing and in one of the games I scored a hat-trick.
"I came on in an FA Cup game against Friends of Fulham and they had players like Marieanne Spacey and Brenda Sempare. I was on for about 25 minutes and I played a blinder! That was it – I was in the first team then.”
Manager Vic Akers liked to play with attacking full backs, so Kirsty was – notionally at least – moved back, where she started a tradition of roving Arsenal right-backs from Alex Scott right up to Emily Fox and Katie McCabe today.
“Playing with very attacking full-backs suited me. I was more offensive than defensive but it became natural. We had Clare Wheatley on the other side, then we had Leanne Champ and Mary Philip. All our full-backs were very attacking.”
Pealling largely played in an era of amateurism, but says the success that Arsenal started to experience in the 1990s was down to the level of support shown by the club. “It was only in my last couple of years we got semi-pro money.
"Before that I paid my subs and contributed. But Arsenal were at the forefront at that time and we had a huge amount of support from the club, from David Dein at board level and Vic – it was unparalleled the level of support we had. Vic was bus driver, physio, manager – he did everything!”
Pealling participated in Arsenal’s rise to an era of unrivalled success in the 1990s and she pinpoints promotion to the top flight in 1992 as a pivotal moment in the club’s history where the backing of the club and the talent on the pitch began to combine in a manner that other clubs struggled to replicate.
“When I first started we were getting beaten quite easily by teams like Millwall, but then we won promotion from the National League South to the Premier League.
“Then we were able to attract some players. Debbie Bampton signed for us, Marieanne Spacey joined us, Sian Williams, who was a fantastic player for us – that level of player started to come in. They had experience too and that gave us the foundation. Our first year in the Premier League we won the treble!”
But Pealling says it wasn’t just talent that set the Arsenal team apart.
“In every team I played in, I played with some amazing players, but the mentality has always been there. Vic taught us about being humble when we won and respectful when we lost, and he instilled in us the importance of the club and the badge.
"We stayed humble as a group, and I see that in this generation of players. I still see those traditions of the club today.”
Kirsty was a one-club woman. While plenty of players of Pealling’s calibre in that era left for the United States or Sweden, or were tempted by Fulham’s short time as a fully professional club in the early 2000s, Pealling stayed with Arsenal for the duration of her career.
However, she admits there were reasons other than her attachment to Arsenal.
“Not many people know I had a kidney condition since I was nine years old. Vic knew and some of the girls did. I had a transplant in 2015. It was the club I loved, I was happy, I was getting first-team football and winning trophies and I had a great group of friends. I did college and university in London because I wanted to keep playing.
"Football really helped me in terms of my health and probably delayed my transplant until long after I had retired. That was a big factor in me staying and that is probably why I retired at 31."
She eventually retired in 2006, a decision Kirsty says was expedited by injury.
> "It was the club I loved, I was happy, I was getting first-team football and winning trophies and I had a great group of friends."
“I had a great pre-season in the summer of 2005 and I felt great. I played in the Community Shield against Charlton and I did my knee ligaments. I just couldn’t recover from it. I was working full-time, and I didn’t drive; I was coaching in Camden. All the training moved to Hertfordshire University and it became difficult.
“I was finishing at 5pm in Camden and trying to get to Herts for 7pm. It became challenging; I was injured so I wasn’t playing. I said to Vic about halfway through the 2005/06 season that I thought that was going to be it for me. Your time comes and when it does you need to realise it and step away. I always said from when I was younger that I would stop in my early thirties.”
Pealling also admits that the emergence of 22-year-old right back Alex Scott helped to make her mind up. “Alex was there when she was younger and she was a centre forward, but she went to Birmingham and established herself as a right back and came back to Arsenal.
"She was a kid from Stepney and I could see she was coming through and I didn’t want to go beyond my years. I didn’t want to play reserve team football; I wanted to go out on a high. It was also the final year at Highbury and I had a lovely presentation there. It just felt right. I have no regrets.”
It feels somewhat unjust that Pealling stepped aside on the eve of the club’s most historic season. “I retired the year before they won the Champions League! I was in the stands for the final against Umea.
"I am so happy with the era that I played in – I wouldn’t change it for the world. I have friends for life and I had an amazing time.”
One of those friends is Emma Hayes, the former Chelsea manager who was the assistant coach for that quadruple-winning team.
“Emma is one of my best mates. She grew up in Camden and we’ve been mates since we were kids. I used to get the 236 bus to Highbury to train at the JVC Centre behind the Clock End, and that’s where I met Emma and we became friends.
“I’m in touch with a lot of the girls. I’m still friends with Yanks \[Rachel Yankey\], I was at the FIFA Champions Cup a few weeks ago because I was invited by Vic. I reconnected with Michelle Curley \[who was Arsenal Ladies’ first professional player alongside Sarah Ryan\] and I am meeting her for dinner and drinks tonight!
"I’m still best friends with Emma Byrne and Leanne Champ, Jayne Ludlow, Ciara Grant and Kelley Few. A lot of us are still very close.”
Kirsty is represented on the “Remember Who You Are” wrap on the outside of Emirates Stadium and has been reconnected with the club in recent years.
“I was so touched when I got the email with the design and the club asked my permission to use my image. That was a little out of the blue because I hadn’t had much connection before that.
“The club reach out a lot now through the alumni network and I have been to a few games as a result of that. Being on the stadium is so nice. It’s something so unexpected that I am really proud of.
"Arsenal was my only club and the record books don’t totally reflect how many appearances I made because there aren’t really any records from 1987 until around 1991. I reckon I won over 30 trophies.”
While the more precise data around Kirsty’s Arsenal goals and appearances are incomplete, she measures her affection for her time at the club in a different way.
“I wasn’t one to keep records, I don’t know how many goals I scored and how many appearances I made but I have some fabulous memories with some fabulous players and I’m very happy with that.”
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