Former England captain Faye White: 'Women's football has come a long way since my days of playing in over-sized kits'

Faye White was going through her garage recently when she stumbled on an heirloom which - in its own way - symbolised how far the women's game has come since she first kicked a ball in anger.

"Even when I first started playing for Arsenal and England, we wore large and extra-large men’s kits and they were like tents on us," she recalls, with a laugh. ”I actually got one out from the garage the other day. I found a bag with some of my old kits in. I held it up and thought: 'This is huge on me.' I know I'm a bit bigger now as I’m not playing or training as much, but still!"

It is a far cry from England's Class of 2019, who are wearing their own specially designed kits for the first time at the World Cup. Not that White is jealous: as England’s longest-serving captain from 2002 until her retirement from international duty a decade later, she is able to offer some precious perspective on the development of a sport which was, and remains, her life.

White, now 41, is an undisputed totem of the English game. Amassing 31 trophies during a 17-year career at the heart of Arsenal’s defence, she entered the sport long before it was even thinking of turning professional, when players were hampered by reduced recovery time between matches and had limited access to physiotherapy.

White has her own battle scars from leading her country at major tournaments, having suffered a nose-breaking challenge from Abby Wambach in England’s 3-0 quarter-final defeat against the USA at the 2007 World Cup in China. Two years later, she wore a face mask to protect a fractured cheekbone in England’s Euro 2009 semi-final victory over Holland.

In total, she estimates she spent about four years on the sidelines, a direct result of two anterior cruciate ligament injuries. She was often entrusted to monitor her own recovery and act on advice from Colin Lewin, a longstanding men’s physio at Arsenal during Arsene Wenger’s reign, albeit on a monthly basis. It was a novelty compared to what other female players at that time were used to.

“I’d go out on the field and just do it all on my own,” revealed White. “You’re recovering from an ACL injury, and you’re wondering, ‘Should it feel like that? Should I push it a bit harder or not?

“Now the girls get back quicker. They’ve got someone every step of the way helping them and that would have helped me a lot. For Georgia Stanway and Keira Walsh, that’s all they know. It’s just a completely different world for them to grow up in. They’re only going to know what they know, but you hope they appreciate where its come from.”

When she signed for Arsenal in 1996, White would rise at 6am to go to work an early shift as a fitness instructor in Horley, followed by a two-hour training session in the afternoon and would often arrive home at midnight after a two-hour train to Highbury from her home in Horley, Surrey. This was her routine for four years, but White counts herself as one of the lucky ones who reaped the benefits of being at a club stamping the women’s game with the hallmarks of equality it increasingly knows today.

“I’d go on hospital visits with Cesc Fabregas and Arsene Wenger,” recalls White, who received a signed French shirt from Viera months after he won the World Cup in 1998. “They [Arsenal] were good at doing that way before other clubs, like what is happening at Manchester City now.

“Around the training ground I’d often bump into them and they’d remember you. When Thierry Henry and Patrick Viera were captains, they were very good at making the women’s team feel involved and ask how you’re doing when they saw you.

“They’d stop and ask us how we were doing. Sometimes the English players were almost  a little bit more… well it just seemed like a different culture.

"I went to America with the men’s team a couple of years ago when Henry was playing for the Red Bulls. He saw me at an event and said, ‘Hi! How are you?’ I thought he wouldn’t even remember me, but we chatted for about half an hour. With things like that, it makes you think they did take a genuine interest in the women’s team and everything about the club.”

Now mother to Lucas, six, and Jake two, and with her mischievous English pointer, Ringo, in tow, White has thrown herself into motherhood and couples her parental commitments by supporting the Premier League, the FA and Government’s Football Foundation in its aim to increase opportunities in women’s football. She quips that pregnancy was “pretty much the only thing” that made her call time on her career and is now content at spectating the transformation the women’s game has undergone since hanging up her boots.

“The fact that England’s kits are bespoke now show there’s a demand. You think about a young girl who can see those kits on the telly and want to go and kick a ball. It just gives you that identity,” White added.

“Every time I see a major tournament, I think, ‘Can I do it all again, please?’ It’s natural, isn’t it?”