*Originally published May 16, 2016.
LONDON, UNITED KINGDOM – MAY 14: Kelly Smith of Arsenal lifts the trophy with team mates after the SSE Women’s FA Cup Final between Arsenal Ladies and Chelsea Ladies at Wembley Stadium on May 14, 2016 in London, England. (Photo by Ben Hoskins/Getty Images)
She is, and always will be, a legend of women’s football.
Marieanne Spacey, England Assistant Manager
In the 43rd minute or an ordinary game of football, an extraordinary 37-year-old did something which got me out of my seat. That doesn’t happen often these days. With a sway of her hips and a balletic pirouette, Kelly Smith of Arsenal LFC left her marker Ana Borges, to quote a better writer than me “rushing past like a fire engine going to the wrong fire”, before dissecting Chelsea’s back-line with a perfectly weighted through pass.
Saturday’s match, like many finals, was a disappointing one, regular watchers will know Chelsea played well below their standards and Arsenal’s superbly executed game-plan and hunger won the day thanks to a fantastic goal. Women’s football doesn’t need people like me endlessly praising it’s progress and quality. There are only so many “breakthroughs” it can make. Records like attendance figures can be manipulated by clever pricing and offers, statistics tailored by context, but people who watch football, know football and they know quality when they see it, and Kelly Smith oozes it. Just to see her first touch is a blessing. In that one moment, Smith demonstrated everything Mia Hamm once said about her. “Her touch is different class – everything’s clean, everything’s with a purpose. The pace of her passes is always perfect and she can score at will too”.
The problem with enticing so many children with free tickets to boost crowd figures is that they are too young to remember just how good a footballer Kelly Smith is. Her appearances now are often cameos, in Arsenal’s last game she wasn’t even named in the 16-player squad. When she came on for the second half against Chelsea last month in the FA WSL, their coach Emma Hays said she was still Arsenal’s biggest threat, “it shows what a wonderful player she is”. In my lifetime, England has produced two footballers who can justifiably have called themselves the best in the world – Paul Gascoigne for a short-time before his injury in 1991 and Kelly Smith around the middle of the last decade.
In 50 years’ time, people may look back to last summer’s World Cup as Year Zero for women’s football. Yet this weekend was the 46th Women’s Cup final. It was 23 years before The FA felt it worthy enough to put its name to the competition and 45 before it felt it deserving of a place in its National Stadium.
AUGSBURG, GERMANY – JULY 05: Kelly Smith of England is challenged by Azusa Iwashimizi of Japan during the FIFA Women’s World Cup 2011 group B match between England and Japan at the FIFA World Cup stadium on July 5, 2011 in Augsburg, Germany. (Photo by Stuart Franklin/Getty Images)
A living legend of the game herself, Marieanne Spacey, who spoke so eloquently at Kick It Out’s Women’s Raise Your Game conference in Birmingham, was starring for England in a World Cup 21 years ago. Remarkably, a 16-year-old Kelly Smith was almost picked for that tournament but was unable to accept the call-up as she was taking her GCSEs. She had to wait 12 years to play at the highest level of the women’s game.
On September 11, 2007 in Shanghai, England were expected to beat Japan but after a poor first half they fell behind. In two minutes, Kelly Smith produced two moments of magic which put England ahead and left us with an image which is timeless. The picture of her kissing her left boot would have gone viral in this age of social media but for women’s football in this country it’s iconic effect truly “inspired a generation”.
At 28, Smith was the third-oldest member of a squad contained young starlets, Eniola Aluko, Siobhan Chamberlain, Karen Carney, Lianne Sanderson, Alex and Jill Scott, Carly Telford, and Fara Williams who eight years later were the leaders of England’s squad in Canada. Spacey told me, “I think those young players looked up to Kelly Smith as a role model and she certainly delivered. She had all the skill in the world on the pitch, but also off the pitch, that determination, that real drive to be the best that you can be”.
Faye White, her captain for club and country, believes if Smith had played in a World Cup earlier than 2007, she would be rated higher than Brazilian legend Marta “for me, Kelly works harder and tracks back”. Citing her 50-yard winning goal against Russia at Euro 2009, White said “she did things on the pitch, other people couldn’t even see”. New Arsenal signing, Jodie Taylor, the woman who transformed England’s World Cup last summer when she came on against Norway, has only recently started training with Smith at London Colney. She was equally effusive “you have to say she’s England’s greatest footballer of all time, I just wish I’d been able to play with her when she was at her peak”.
On Smith’s last appearance at Wembley during the London 2012 Olympics, she had missed a penalty in the win over Marta’s Brazil. Here, she missed the opportunity to move ahead of former team-mate Julie Fleeting with a record-breaking seventh FA Women’s Cup final goal, when she hit the crossbar with a second-half header. Yet, these were mere footnotes in a display which demonstrated all her quality and qualities. When Chelsea missed a chance to equalise late in the first half, Smith raced back to berate her defence before calmly pointing out where they went wrong.
In the post-match press conference Arsenal manager Pedro Losa couldn’t praise her highly enough. “She gave us exactly what we needed from the tactical part, but also character on the pitch, so I can only say ‘thank you Kelly'”. In her interview for the BBC, Smith admitted “playing in front of all these fans, playing at Wembley, I mean, it was just unreal, an unreal experience, one that I’ll cherish for the rest of my life”.
Watching her play over the years is something I will always cherish for the rest of mine.
Kelly Smith of England kisses her boot after scoring her first of two goals against Japan during their opening 2007 FIFA Women’s World Cup football tournament Group A match at the Hongkou Stadium in Shanghai, 11 September 2007. The game ended as a 2-2 draw at the event that will be played in the five Chinese cities of Shanghai, Tianjin, Hangzhou, Wuhan and Chengdu from 10 to 30 September. AFP PHOTO/Mark RALSTON (Photo credit should read MARK RALSTON/AFP/Getty Images)
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