Midfielder Jade Steadman and her Ashford United Ladies team-mates can be inspiration to town’s next generation of female footballers

By Faye Hackwell

Growing up, she was known as “the girl who played football”.

But with interest and participation in the women’s game increasing all the time, Ashford United Ladies midfielder Jade Steadman is hoping her team can help to inspire the next generation of local girls to play and enjoy the sport.

Sitting top of their league table and playing in the League Trophy Final on Sunday, they may be ending their first season under Ashford United with double silverware.

As a child, Steadman’s football role models were all men, because she didn’t have female household names like Beth Mead, Leah Williamson and Ella Toone to look up to.

“When I was a little girl, I was the girl who played football, whereas nowadays my son plays and he’s got a girl on his team and there are girls in the opposition,” she said.

Steadman was the only girl in a boys’ team until she turned 11, when FA rules at the time meant she was no longer allowed to play competitively with boys.

She continued training with her boys’ team but played for a girls’ team in Folkestone, where her manager put her forward for trials with Charlton Athletic when she was 10. She got in and worked her way up through the age groups, getting called up to the women’s first team when she was 15 - and then to the England squad.

“I went to a training session at Sparrows Lane and one of my team-mates said ‘congratulations on the England call up’.

“They’d put it on the internet before, but the very next day I got a package with a letter formally inviting me to an England camp and then I was involved with the under-19s, under-21s and under-23s.”

But when she turned 18, two things coincided that put her football aspirations on hold.

“I got to the point where I’d finished