Women’s football’s Black British icons

This article is part of The Athletic’s series marking UK Black History Month. To view the whole collection, click here.The trailblazers. The groundbreakers. The icons.To mark UK Black History Month, our writers have shone a spotlight on the Black British women that have carried the flame for generations that look like them and inspired people of all backgrounds around the world.Some are those that took the tentative first steps for Black British women in the sport. Others are household names still producing moments of wonder today.These are some of the greatest Black British icons in women’s football.Mary Phillip“You can’t do that.” Less a collection of words as a perpetual refrain that pestered Mary Phillip, a humming soundtrack to all the things the future England Women’s captain wanted to do: scramble up trees after her older brothers in Peckham, play football in the school yard, return to competitive international football after giving birth twice, wear the captain’s armband for England after doing so, become the first female coach to win silverware with a men’s senior side in the English pyramid.Her riposte was always the same: “Why? Because I couldn’t understand why,” Phillip told The Athletic two years ago. It was this undaunted challenge of convention that undergirded the former Millwall, Fulham, Arsenal and Chelsea midfielder’s storied and empowering playing and coaching career.Since the English FA’s lift of the ban on women’s football in 1970, Phillip remains just one of just three Black players – alongside Alex Scott and Rachel Yankey — to captain the Lionesses in the team’s history, doing so in 2002.This arrived four years after her last international cap due to her decision to have two boys and raise them while playing, an unthinkable task a quarter of a century ago and one still taboo today. To trace Phillip’s whole career from player to coach is to trace the obstacles and landmarks of women in football in this country past and present.For Phillip, her journey is not history, but rather the simple extension of the refrain she learned to sing back against all those years ago.Megan FeringaLauren JamesThe current generation of Lionesses will go down in English footballing folklore for a multitude of reasons, but few will be remembered for their sheer footballing talent as much as Lauren James will.Watching James on the football pitch often involves wondering why she’s not quite where you’d expect her to be, moving as quite fast as you’d expect her to move, playing the pass you expect she might play. Then a few seconds later, you wonder how a woman who seemed to be jogging has just ghosted through an entire defence, how she has wriggled out of pressure as though sporting a force field, and how she has bent the ball from the most improbable angle into an unreachable pocket of the net.James made her senior debut at Arsenal and signed her first professional contract at Manchester United, but is synonymous with Chelsea, her childhood club, which she rejoined in 2021. She has since been a core figure in their dynasty, winning a haul of both team and individual accolades. She was also part of the England squad that won Euro 2025 and finished as runners-up at the 2023 World Cup.In 2024, she launched the LJ10 scholarship with the aim of increasing diversity in women’s football.“We need to get more diversity in the women’s game and that starts with giving girls like you — who have the talent to succeed — every chance to do so,” she wrote on Instagram in a letter to the first scholars to take part.It has not always been smooth — injuries and a suspension during the 2023 World Cup have stopped her reaching even greater heights. She has also suffered racist abuse, condemned by Chelsea and England. But at 25, James has secured her status as one of the most talented female English footballers of the modern era.Cerys JonesKerry DavisFootball offered Kerry Davis an escape from the racism she faced growing up in Stoke-on-Trent — and by 19 she was making history for England.In September 1982, Davis became the first Black woman to play for England, scoring twice on her debut against Northern Ireland. A fortnight later, she scored all four goals in a 4-0 victory over Scotland.Her international career began nine years before England established its first nationwide women’s league in 1991. Davis started at Crewe Alexandra before spending four years in Italy with Lazio, Trani and Napoli, where semi-professional football offered opportunities largely unavailable to women playing in England.She helped England reach the 1984 European Championship final, was part of the side that won the 1985 Mundialito tournament, and played at the 1995 World Cup. When she made her last England appearance in 1998, her record stood at 43 goals from 90 caps. Nobody surpassed her tally until Kelly Smith did so in 2012.Davis returned to English club football and helped Croydon win the league and FA Cup double in 1995-96. In 2026, Davis received an MBE for services to football and diversity in sport, 44 years after her historic England debut.Amelie ClaydonHope PowellBeing first is never easy. Being first when you are Black and female only elevates the level of difficulty. In 1998, Hope Powell became the first full-time — and first female — manager of the England Women’s national team, while technically still a player. There was no structure in place. No pathway. Not even a real job description; on day one, she was staring at a blank canvas.Almost everything was a battle at first. Powell wanted more for the women’s game; more money, more resources. None of it came easy.“It was tough,” she told The Coaches’ Voice. “I was female. Black. The decision-makers? White. Male. Middle-class.”Powell’s first game in charge came barely two months after her final England appearance as a player and marked the beginning of a 15-year journey that transformed the women’s game in England.By the time Powell left the role in 2013, she had overseen two World Cup quarter-final showings (2007 and 2011), a European Championships final (in 2009), implemented central contracts for some players and coached the Team GB squad competing at a home Olympics in 2012. Her time in charge ended disappointingly, with a group-stage exit from the 2013 Euros, but perhaps that was the only way Powell was ever going to be convinced to leave a role that had been her own for so long, a role she’d created and filled with such passion and determination.She left behind an England setup that had four under-age squads as well as a senior team equipped to continue qualifying for major tournaments and capable of competing with the world’s best. She put the foundations in place that have allowed the Lionesses to become one of those elite teams, and she did it all while fighting the battles that come with being first.“I only ever fought for things that were important, things that were necessary,” she told The Coaches’ Voice. “Maybe some people thought it was about my ego, thought I was trying to build an empire, but it was all for the good of the game.” Sarah ShephardAnita AsanteKnown more today for her crucial societal impact off the pitch than on it, Anita Asante was “a special talent for her generation”, USWNT head coach Emma Hayes said in 2022.“NicenNeetz”, her social media handle, encapsulates the former Arsenal and Chelsea defender’s composure at the back, and playing under pressure stood out to her former Rosengard coach, now at San Diego Wave, Jonas Eidevall, who, speaking to the Arsenal Women Arsecast, waxed lyrical when Asante retired in 2022.A role model in terms of playing style for Arsenal vice-captain and England captain Leah Williamson, Asante was part of Arsenal’s 2006-2007 quadruple-winning team, which including lifting the UEFA Women’s Cup (now known as the Champions League) that season. She represented England 71 times and Team GB at the 2012 Olympics.Beneath her calmness and humility lies a steely mentality to fight adversity, whether that be recovering from two anterior cruciate ligaments injuries or speaking out about racism, sexism and homophobia.Asante, a proud Ghanaian-British woman, has always had the game’s best interests at heart. As a player, she was a member of FIFPRO’s Global Player Council and following her retirement, she has used her knowledge and experience to elevate the women’s game as a coach for Bristol City and England Under-23s, an advisor for the new seven-v-seven competition, World Sevens, and as a media pundit.Charlotte HarpurRachel YankeyFor an entire generation of us, Rachel Yankey is one of the first women’s footballers we can remember watching or knowing at a time when the sport felt largely inaccessible to both watch and play. And yet we knew who Yankey was and that should tell you all you need to know about the dynamic attacker and her incredible legacy.To me, Yankey is the first superstar of the game I can remember seeing not just on television, but in person. I was at England versus Scotland in November 2003 as England won 5-0 at Preston North End’s Deepdale Stadium. Yankey was the one England player whose name me and a lot of my team-mates at Wirral Ladies Under-11s would have known before going on a group trip to watch England at a time when it was a battle for us to even have a team to play for, let alone heroes to idolise.London-born Yankey was the first woman in England to be registered as a full-time professional footballer. They often call the generations that came before this current one “lost” or “forgotten” and Yankey, who disguised herself as a boy to continue playing the sport she adored as a child, had to hide herself to play. And by doing so, she was among those who paved the way so thousands of girls would not have to do the same.Yankey became an Invincible with Arsenal and an England legend, too, with 129 caps across 16 years. She was the first player in history to reach 126 England caps. She played 198 times for Arsenal, winning eight league titles, nine FA Cups, four League Cups and a Champions League (before it was named that). Yankey completed football at a time when the game was largely incomplete.Caoimhe O’NeillAlex ScottMost sports journalism students dream of covering a European final as a broadcaster. When Alex Scott achieved that career landmark, she had already scored the winner in one.In the 91st minute of the first leg against Sweden’s Umea in 2007, the former Arsenal right-back scored the only goal of the UEFA Women’s Cup final and eight days later her team were European champions and completed an unprecedented quadruple that season.She captained Arsenal, won 140 caps for England, reached the 2009 European Championship final and played for Great Britain at the London 2012 Olympics, but Scott was also preparing for a career on the other side of the camera. While still playing, she completed a sports writing and broadcasting degree at Staffordshire University alongside work placements at Sky Sports, Arsenal TV and London Live.In 2018, she became the first female pundit on Sky Sports’ Super Sunday. Three years later, she became Football Focus’s first permanent female presenter, breaking another barrier at one of the BBC’s longest-running sports programmes.The attention was not always welcome and Scott has spoken about the racist and sexist abuse she has received as a broadcaster, including death threats that left her afraid to leave home.Yet the detractors will never dampen what Scott has achieved both on the pitch and then looking onto it.Amelie ClaydonJess CarterCarter’s inclusion here feels particularly pertinent given the disgraceful racial abuse she was force to endure midway through England’s victorious Euro 2025 campaign. But that shouldn’t be the focus of her tournament.The focus should be that Carter emerged as England’s unlikely hero in the final against Spain. Why unlikely? Well, because in two prior games, Carter had, by her own high standards, struggled. She was poor at left-back in the defeat to France and moved to centre-back. Then, in that position, she was off-form in the quarter-final against Sweden. For the semi-final against Italy, Carter was omitted, with Esme Morgan playing instead.So it was a shock when the teamsheet for the final was released and Carter was back in the side at the heart of the defence.Sarina Wiegman showed tremendous faith in Carter to cope with the physical power of Spanish striker Esther Gonzalez, and she played magnificently in the final.This was Carter at her best: a pure defender, strong in the tackle, intelligent in reading play, able to bring the ball forward from the back, attributes that have fuelled her career to date with Birmingham City, Chelsea and Gotham FC.Once defined by her versatility, that often counted against her at the biggest moments, but on the occasion that she helped her country retain their status as the European champions, England’s defensive plan was based around Carter. Michael CoxEni AlukoEni Aluko made her name on the football pitch, becoming a stalwart of the England Women’s side (102 caps, 33 goals in an 11-year spell) and finishing her career as one of England’s most decorated female players, with four FA Cup wins and three Women’s Super League titles.Off the pitch, though, she’s also a qualified lawyer who has had at least as big — if not an even bigger — impact. In 2014, while still playing for Chelsea, she became the first female pundit in the 50-year history of BBC’s Match of the Day, appearing on the MOTD2 Extra webcast. Two years later, she spoke out about the behaviour of England manager Mark Sampson and the culture that surrounded his coaching staff. Aluko became what she termed an “accidental whistleblower” and it marked the end of her storied international career.Shortly after her retirement from football, Aluko took on her first executive role, as Aston Villa Women’s first sporting director, a position she went on to hold with Angel City FC. More recently, she joined multi-club ownership group Mercury/13 and went on to become the first African-born woman to make the board of Italy’s top-flight football club Como Women.Standing up for what she believes is right and steadfastly backing her opinions is something Aluko has done consistently. Last year, she won a libel case against former footballer Joey Barton for a series of “grossly offensive” social media posts aimed at her and others. It has also sometimes led her to become something of a divisive figure — not least in her public spat with former Arsenal striker Ian Wright, triggered by her accusations that he was “blocking” the pathway for female broadcasters, comments that she apologised for.She remains an icon for her legacy and achievements as a player, her push for female footballers to have pathways after retirement and determination to fight for equality on various fronts.Sarah ShephardNikita ParrisNikita Parris is the pride of not just Toxteth, where she grew up, but Liverpool as a whole. Parris, who represented Great Britain at the Olympics in 2021, was part of the groundbreaking England squad who won the European Championship in 2022.Currently playing for London City Lionesses, Parris, who featured in a mural on London Road in Liverpool in 2019 ahead of the World Cup, has helped inner-city kids dream because she is proof of what can happen when you do.The 32-year-old forward was destined not just to become a professional who would win a Women’s Super League title with Manchester City and a Champions League with Lyon among the 10 major honours she has won across various clubs, but to play and never stop.At 11, there was nowhere for Parris to play, so she created her own football team called Kingsley United. Parris rounded up family and friends her age to play in the team and, of course, they won the league.This is a footballer who does not do anything at half-speed. The word scrappy comes to mind when you watch Parris, but that word does her a disservice as there is a relentless elegance in how she harries after the ball and what she does when she is in control.She is a naturally gifted goalscorer who has found the net 94 times in 246 appearances for clubs including Everton ,where she made her debut at 16, as well as Arsenal, Manchester United and Brighton. Her style of play was forged on the Toxteth streets that will never forget her, because how could they?Caoimhe O’NeillLianne SandersonLianne Sanderson has never been one to fade into the background.Whether for her unfiltered takes as a pundit or the distinctive flash of platinum hair that so often rounded a defender before she slotted the ball into the back of the net, Sanderson is one of women’s football’s big characters.A player with pedigree matched by few in the game — England international, quadruple-winner at Arsenal, prolific scorer at clubs across the globe — Sanderson blazed a trail on the pitch since pleading with her father to allow her to start playing football as a five-year-old.Joining Arsenal as part of their first youth programme in 1997, Sanderson was at the core of a pioneering generation of players led by Vic Akers.After later spells with Chelsea, Espanyol, Boston Breakers and Juventus, among others, post-retirement Sanderson carved out a role for herself as one of the leading voices in broadcasting on the women’s game in the U.S.Twice an FA Cup final scorer and with back-to-back seasons of 40 and 51 goals scored in 2006-07 and 2007-08, defenders could not touch her at the peak of her powers.Nancy FrostonThis article originally appeared in The Athletic.England, Women's Soccer, Culture, Women's Super League2026 The Athletic Media Company