Bonfire Night was beckoning when Fara Williams stepped off the bench, scored with her first kick and transformed the match beyond recognition.
It was 5 November 1999 and no firework display that evening would rival the 15-year-old midfielder’s performance alongside players three years her senior as England Under-18s beat Ukraine 4-0. Sixty-five minutes had passed when Williams came on and it was 0-0 but by the final whistle she had registered two goals of her own and created a couple more.
Sixteen years later she could be found within Edmonton’s Commonwealth Stadium converting the extra-time penalty which not only secured England a bronze medal at the 2015 World Cup in Canada but ensured Mark Sampson’s side beat Germany for the first time in three decades of trying.
Fast forward to Monday evening and England’s most-capped player of either gender announced her retirement at the age of 37. After 172 senior England caps, an MBE, two WSL title triumphs, two FA Cup victories and participation in three World Cups, four European Championships and the 2012 Olympics with Team GB, Williams announced this season is her last.
If the Women’s Super League, and her current club Reading especially, will miss her rare capacity to shape and control matches – not to mention deliver a mean dead ball – the modern professional game is also losing a vital link with its relatively recent unstarry and amateur roots.
On Monday Williams thanked three people in particular for their outstanding assistance in helping her navigate the journey into female football’s bright new 21st century. One was the retired journalist Tony Leighton, formerly a regular Guardian contributor, who, as Williams put it, “promoted the women’s game when no one else did”.
Had Leighton not been present that night in November 1999 the journalistic archives would have no record of her stunning debut, let alone numerous staging posts along the road to his reports (for assorted national newspapers) of that ground-breaking Edmonton penalty.
Significantly, Williams’s life has not always arced in sync with the imperious trajectory of her hallmark free-kicks and she rightly emphasised the roles Hope Powell and Mo Marley played in arresting some vicious dips.
These days she is articulate, opinionated, candid, ever curious and a brilliant tactical analyst. Williams loves to talk – invariably abundant sense – but in 1999 Leighton could barely coax a word from her.
Back then a girl who grew up playing cage football with boys in Battersea, south London, had a difficult home life. She would subsequently endure nine years estranged from her mother (happily the rift has since fully healed) and spend six of them homeless while still playing for Chelsea, Charlton and England.
It was Powell, then her manager with England seniors, who realised Williams was of no fixed abode, drifting from hostel to hostel as she endeavoured to camouflage the misery of her private world from teammates.
Powell, now managing Brighton and still a good friend and mentor, found the midfielder accommodation in London and, crucially, bought her a sleeping bag. To this day, Williams works tirelessly with homeless charities and remains acutely aware of precisely how quickly ostensibly secure existences can unravel.
Marley also played a big part in putting the midfielder’s life back together. The leading coach, now retired, signed Williams for Everton before finding her a paid skills-coaching job on Merseyside and warm, welcoming, lodgings with a local family.
The future held trophy-punctuated moves to Liverpool and Arsenal – along with her marriage to her former Everton teammate Amy Kane. Shortly after their breakup, Williams proved disarmingly open when discussing her sexuality and the refreshing lack of homophobia in women’s football during a 2017 Guardian interview with this reporter.
“I’m quite a private person and I wouldn’t have come out,” said Williams. “But if you get married it’s public and, even though we’re no longer together, I’m proud of marrying Amy. Quite a few female players are happy to talk about their sexuality but others are more private; there’s nothing right or wrong about how we want to be perceived.”
There is also zero doubt as to the exceptionally high regard Williams, both the person and the footballer, commands across the women’s game. “Fara’s been a fantastic player,” reflected Powell. “And a wonderful ambassador for our sport.”
Although this swan-song season has seen Williams hampered by the side-effects of steroid treatment for a kidney condition, she bows out on her own terms at a moment when rival coaches vied to sign her from Reading. “I knew Fara would be a great role model but she’s surpassed even my expectations,” said Powell. “She’s made an extraordinary contribution to the women’s game.”