By Isabella McRae
INTERVIEWCarol Wilson
Carol Wilson’s legs felt like jelly as she walked through the tunnel of Mexico’s largest football stadium. Tens of thousands of people roared and waved as they waited for a game of women’s football. It turned to white noise when she got onto the pitch.
The 19-year-old England captain stood still absorbing it for a moment. It was a scorching August day, and the Azteca Stadium magnified the sun. This was the 1971 Women’s World Cup. It is the largest event in women’s sporting history with games reaching more than 100,000 spectators – but it remains unrecognised by football associations and was largely forgotten for 50 years.
Wilson’s team was banned from playing football again.
A new documentary Copa 71, produced by Venus and Serena Williams, tells the extraordinary story of the tournament and its pioneering players.
Wilson, 71, remembers becoming mesmerised by football as a child. She was playing with her dad near St James’s Park stadium in Newcastle and heard an almighty roar. “What’s that?” she asked.
Newcastle United had just scored. Her dad jumped up and down pumping his fists in the air, and she copied him. She hoped one day she would watch a game.
“We were extremely poor,” she says, “I say we didn’t have anything, but my mum was a genius. She made all our clothes with any scrap of material she got her hands on. And my dad never stopped encouraging me. As soon as I could walk, he kicked a ball along the passage so I could kick it back.”
When she was old enough, she played football with the boys in her neighbourhood.
“I know this is a bit of a cliche, but did you see the film, Billy Elliot? You know when he said he felt electric? It was like that. I wasn’t in the place I should have been, pushing a pram with a dolly in it, but I was doing what I actually wanted to do. It was euphoric.”
Girls weren’t allowed to play football at school, but she participated in every sport she could. She wanted to study physical education at Loughborough but felt she was not academic enough.
Instead, she joined the RAF as a physical trainer, where she picked up football again. The men laughed when she asked to join but were stunned by her skills.
Through one of those games, she was scouted for England by Harry Batt, who was searching for the best players across the country.
Training wasn’t always smooth
