England, Arsenal and each of us have the perfect role model in the brilliant Leah Williamson

She’s a brilliant centre-back, keeps lifting trophies and is a wonderful voice for women’s football.

Here’s ‘What’s so Great About…’ Leah Williamson…

Who’s this then?
Leah Cathrine Williamson is a 5ft 7ins 26-year-old defender or midfielder for Arsenal and England. She has captained her country and lifted four trophies in the past year, including the 2022 Euros. She was recently awarded an OBE for services to football, topped the Woman’s Hour Power List 2023 and has been an especially articulate champion for the women’s game and equal opportunity for girls.

She is one of the most high-profile players in the women’s game and is determined to use her profile for the greater good to promote fairness and equality. As such she is one of the most important people in sport right now. She will lead England into the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand this summer.

Born in Milton Keynes and growing up in Newport Pagnell in a football-loving house where the women supported Arsenal and the men Spurs, inspired by her mother who played for Milton Keynes, she joined Rushden & Diamonds Centre of Excellence aged just six, three years later following their coach to Arsenal’s Centre Of Excellence, making her first-team debut aged 17.

She was spotted early on as a prodigious talent, playing youth football for England from 2010 and was voted England Women’s Youth Player of the Year 2014, FA WSL Continental Cup Player of the Year 2014 and PFA Young Women’s Player of the Year 2015.

Since her debut, it has been an upward curve, winning six trophies with the Gunners. Playing 41 times for her country and 218 times for her club – a lot in women’s football – winning five trophies with England, four in the last year, including this week’s victory over a talented Brazil team on penalties in the Women’s Finalissima in front of over 83,000 fans at Wembley. Chloe Kelly once again scored the winner.

These are such exciting days for women’s football as its exposure and popularity grow exponentially with many preferring its open and inclusive, non-tribal culture. A place that is safe to take their kids to.

Why the love?
When talking about the appeal of a female footballer there are always so many political issues to deal with, but first and foremost Leah is simply a really excellent player. She can play centre-back or further forward in midfield. A cultured player, she’s not one for the crunching tackle, her game is all about reading the play so she can be in the right place at the right time to retrieve possession. Once on the ball, she has the vision to play penetrating passes. This is what makes her good in either role.

Calm under pressure and not easily ruffled, it’s interesting that it was England manager Sarina Wiegman who believed in her potential, officially giving her the armband just a year ago, calling her “a great leader”. She was right about that. She’s right about everything.

This was quite something to achieve for someone who had gone through several years suffering a crisis of confidence from the age of 18 into her early 20s, who went from being the most vocal on the pitch to being quiet and introverted, lacking self-belief. Thankfully, with the help of psychologists she overcame this hurdle and to hear her talk now is to hear someone who is thoughtful, clear-minded and empathetic. She couldn’t be a better role model.

She vocalises so many of the issues that have plagued women’s football forever, exposing them to the daylight of truth. Look at how she articulates why the women’s game is not inhibited about players’ same-sex relationships the way men’s football is:

“…every single woman who has got herself to the point of playing, especially professionally, has had to face misogyny. So once you come into our game, there’s no way we would alienate anybody. I don’t think you would say anything in a woman’s changing room that would shock anybody because it’s so open. It’s, be who you are, celebrate who you are, because this is a safe space for you.”

Beautiful.

As she herself has said, she’d like to just have to talk about the football but that’s not possible because there are so many things that have and still do hold women and women’s football back, so many things to overcome. All those people who said women playing football would never pull a big crowd must look at the 83,000 at Wembley on Thursday and the 17.4m who watched the Euro final on TV with some astonishment and hopefully be humbled by it.

Three great moments
Trapping the ball with her foot behind her head:

How's your touch, @LeahcWilliamson? 😎 pic.twitter.com/U5wBHZhxzk

— Arsenal Women (@ArsenalWFC) April 19, 2021

Winners!

The passion!

Future days?
It’s massively to her credit that she is so politically active – political in the best, non-party way – and is clearly on a mission to make young girls believe that anything is possible. When she was little she had to overcome being born with pigeon toes and trying to play football in a largely sexist sport which simply didn’t respect girls playing football like they did boys. That has put real fire in her belly.

She has written a book with the Guardian’s Suzanne Wrack called ‘You Have the Power – Find Your Strength and Believe You Can’. It is part memoir, part motivation manual aimed at girls between the age of 10 and 14 – thosewhoare most likely to drop out of the sport.

“This age group struggles the most in terms of who we want to be as young women. They’re the ones who could benefit most from the book.”

She had impeccable credibility in this inspirational role as England captain, but also because of what she and all her teammates have had to go through to get to their preeminent position.

With only 63% of girls having access to football at school, she and her teammates wrote a letter to Downing Street demanding parity and while you can never trust anything this government says, it seems to have moved the dial.

A sufferer from endometriosis, she has led the campaign to get England’s white shorts changed to blue shorts. It might seem like a small thing but it illustrates that women are being listened to at last and that is in no small measure due to Leah Williamson.

It isn’t hard to imagine her in some sort of more defined political role when her football career is done simply because she’s such a powerful advocate for equality and has all the passion and belief you need.

With England one of the favourites to win the World Cup, they will be tested like never before this summer. But would you really back against them or their fantastic captain?