Leah Williamson
Six months after England’s Lionesses brought football home, their captain is still climbing down from the fairy tale. Here, Leah Williamson opens up about performance anxiety, endometriosis and football bosses who pay lip service to the women’s game
It might have something to do with 10 Downing Street’s revolving door, but many of us have had the topic of leadership on our minds of late. And for my money, you’d be hard pushed to find a chief better suited to their position right now than Leah Williamson. The Milton Keynes native, just 25 years old, who led England’s Lionesses to victory last summer, gives it to you straight, cracks jokes (including savaging herself ), can’t stop talking about the talents of her teammates and has the sort of easy authority that makes you want to follow where she treads. She’s also quintessentially English – but not the England of that wistful American fantasy, nor the mythical country clumsily painted by political strategists to win votes. No, Leah is cut from the cloth of a culture you actually know: one with the Argos catalogue, Kathy Burke comedies and Sunday roasts. And she reps it, hard – whether she’s donning a union jack bowler at a jubilee street party, dancing to Calvin Harris amid a throng of ravers in Ibiza or jubilantly celebrating a win on the pitch.
Or here, in a cafe near her home in St Albans, clad in an oversized hoodie and cap, apologising profusely for being late (a mere 15 minutes – practically punctual by celeb standards) and insisting breakfast is on her. She had to stop en route to pick up a strap for her injured ankle – ‘I would have run otherwise!’ When I ask how she’s doing with it, she’s all professional game face. She praises Arsenal teammate Jordan Nobbs for changing the side’s fortunes when she came on during their three-one victory over West Ham the day before we meet; and notes the novelty of getting to watch the match with her football-mad family. But it’s clear Leah – who’s been playing since she was six, was scouted to join Arsenal’s academy at nine and worked the club’s gate on game days with her mum – is missing the beautiful game. ‘When I take a tight touch to a crisp pass, to me, it feels like I’m dancing,’ she says, with an expression of blissed-out ease. ‘It’s a way of expressing myself.
There are times when I’m playing when it’s hard to set up things, but when I’m dancing, I’m just: touch; bang! You know? You move so freely.’
Making history
This physical flow state was present and correct in the Euros final agai
