‘I turned pro just at the time women’s football leapt forward’

Her footballing career began by kicking a ball around with her big brother and went on to become one of the most decorated players of her generation.

With a century of England caps, a UEFA Women’s Cup (now the Champions League), eight domestic league titles and 11 FA Women’s Cups – as well as an MBE and an OBE – Rachel Yankey is a footballing icon.

The girl who cut her hair and called herself ‘Ray’ so she could play in a boys’ team has become a role model for millions – and that’s why she’s working with LinkedIn during UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 to highlight a new set of inspirational figures.

With spells in Canada and the USA, as well as her most famous stint with Arsenal, Yankey has her place in the history books for many reasons – but one of the most striking was becoming England’s first full-time female professional footballer with Fulham in 2000.

“The main memory was of being given the opportunity to become professional and being able to train every day, and being paid for something I loved doing,” she says.

“Looking back at it now, it was [then Fulham chairman] Mohamed Al-Fayed who, after watching and being inspired by the 1999 Women’s World Cup, took the opportunity to make the team professional, with the expectation of a national women’s league soon to follow. That was really the start of taking the women’s game forward.”

Since then the elite women’s game has moved on to such a degree that it’s almost unrecognisable. Sarina Wiegman’s England women will be gracing the pitches of Manchester’s Old Trafford, the American Express Community Stadium in Brighton and St Mary’s in Southampton in the group stages this summer – but 17 years ago, Yankey and her England team-mates also got the chance to play at some famous grounds.

Back in 2005, north-west England hosted the Women’s EURO. Hope Powell’s team attracted more than 29,000 to their first group game at the City of Manchester Stadium (now the Etihad), 14,695 at Blackburn’s Ewood Park for a mid-afternoon kick-off, then more than 25,000 at the same venue to finish their campaign.

“At that time, the biggest games you would ever play in front of a crowd were the FA Cup games, so to be out there in a tournament playing back-to-back games in front of crowds, as a footballer it was all you wanted to be doing – it was a real buzz,” Yankey says.

And it was a huge chance to give women’s football the platform it needed – with television coverage putting the players in living rooms across the world.

“It was huge,” Yankey recalls, “I think because England had never hosted anything like that, combined with the fact that we were playing against quality opposition – there was this opportunity to really showcase the game in this country – it was massive.”

And Yankey realised just how big women’s football was becoming when she started to see her name on the back of replica shirts worn by fans – just the kind of visibility for fantastic role models that she and LinkedIn want to see.

“The great part of watching it now is just seeing those crowds growing and the interest building,” she says.

As someone who has played as an amateur and as a professional, Yankey has plenty of suggestions on how to grow the game even further – and part of that includes creating superstar footballers that little girls can look up to and emulate.

“We need to have more fans in the stadiums in domestic games in the Barclays Women’s Super League,” she says. “We need to continue the growth of brand partnerships across the game and individually with the players. I’d like to see the players becoming household names.”

This summer’s UEFA Women’s EURO 2022 has the opportunity to do that, she says – it is a great chance to encourage girls and young women into football, however they want to get involved, and show them all the women already achieving their ambitions in the sport.

“I think women’s football really has the ability to inspire the next generation,” she says, “whether it be playing, refereeing, coaching, journalism, whatever – just having an involvement in sport.”

Follow in her footsteps

​​LinkedIn, a national sponsor of the UEFA Women’s EURO 2022, is working with footballing trailblazer Rachel Yankey, to spotlight visible role models that inspire future generations – both on and off the pitch. Follow Rachel on LinkedIn and join in the conversation by using the hashtag #FollowInHerFootsteps