Team mates past and present pay tribute to Steph Houghton
The former England captain announced she will retire from the sport at the end of the season, and those who have played with her hit home the impact she has had on the sport...
“I think when you see the word icon used…I wouldn’t use that term lightly, but she absolutely is,” said Emma Coates, head coach of England’s U23s, about Steph Houghton.
The 35-year-old Manchester City captain last week announced she would retire from playing at the end of the current season after a glittering career which saw her lead the England team with the armband for seven years.
Between her 121 caps for the Lionesses, Houghton has won 16 major domestic honours as well as a bronze medal at a breakthrough World Cup for the England team and the women’s game in general in Canada back in 2015.
Wherever her career has gone, regularly success has followed. As a teenager, she was part of a Sunderland side which included fellow future internationals such as Lucy Bronze, Jill Scott, Jordan Nobbs and Demi Stokes, and it was a similar story at Leeds Carnegie where she played with Ellen White, Jade Moore, Rachel Daly and Carly Telford.
It was also in West Yorkshire over a decade ago where another young defender in Coates was coming through the system, and took a place in the squad when Carnegie, who were backing the team at the time, decided not to apply for a licence for the new Women’s Super League, and all first team players departed.
“I wish I’d followed in the same steps after her,” laughs Coates. “I think for a long period she was the face of women’s football and has been a huge pioneer and leader in a lot of the changes we’ve seen in the game.
“I remember at Leeds when she was there and I was a young player coming through. I thought I was young, but then I realised I was only a couple of years younger than Steph and maybe I just wasn’t as good a player as I thought I was!
“But seeing what she has gone on to achieve doesn’t surprise me and I’ve had really, really small snippets of being able to see her in training when she was young and you knew she was destined for greatness and I’m sure she’ll have more great things ahead too.”
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Houghton’s career has in so many ways become intertwined with the progress of the women’s game.
Even as a defender, she became the star of the London Olympics in 2012 when she scored several goals as women’s football was put under the national spotlight for the first time, to huge crowds across the country.
In 2014, she signed for the revamped Manchester City, became the England captain and subsequently became the first female to appear on the cover of Shoot! Magazine all in the space of a year.
A year later, she was the captain of the Lionesses as they captured the nation’s imagination with a gutsy run to the World Cup semi-finals, the heartbreak of Japan and the subsequent euphoria of a bronze medal and a first ever win against Germany.
For many young players now, Houghton has been one of the first names and faces they’ve seen as they’ve made their own first steps into the professional game, a game a world away from the one Houghton stepped into.
The defender herself stated she hoped she’d leave the game in a better place than when she started and that in itself is indisputable, but so is the impact she has had on so many coming behind her.
“She’s been massive,” said Manchester City teammate Jess Park, who would have been just 12 years old when Houghton first joined the club from Arsenal.
“I remember when I was young watching the Olympics and saw her scoring the free-kick, I idolised that. Being able to meet her, play with her, just actually know Steph as a person…I think I said in my post, she’s an absolutely incredible person and I just think the stuff she does on the pitch, it’s obvious to everyone it’s incredible, but the stuff away from the pitch, the advice and help she’s given me has just been…yeah. She’s just a top person.”
Houghton’s international status likely won’t change between now and her retirement, and she hasn’t been capped since 2021, and gave it her all to battle back to be ready for a home European Championships in 2022, but was left out by Sarina Wiegman.
There will also be no change to her illustrious five FA Cups and seven Continental Cups, but there could yet be a fond farewell with a fourth Women’s Super League trophy, which would be her first since 2016, with Manchester City locked in a tense title race with Chelsea.
For a player who has achieved so much and given so much to the game, it would be hard to argue against being a deserved farewell for a player whose minutes on the pitch has dwindled through injury in recent years, but whose impact away from the pitch on those she works with has clearly never changed, despite no doubt her own disappointment at not playing as much as she would like.
One player whose career she has shared a path with over the past few years is that of Alex Greenwood’s.
With Greenwood formerly of Everton, Liverpool and Manchester United, the pair were rivals for many years before coming together on the blue side of Manchester and share a role on the field, as well as many times on the pitch for England.
Greenwood of all people has known the Houghton of the latter part of her career as well as anyone, and gave an in-depth and poignant answer about the depth her influence goes within the changing room, even in the toughest of times.
"I could sit here all day and talk about Steph, I admire her so much,” said Greenwood. “The person she is even more than the player. I think...honestly, when she walks in every single day, I've never seen Steph have an off day, in terms of she comes in with 100% commitment.
“She announced her retirement on the Wednesday and the next day she's first in, as always, last to leave, as always. Every rep, every set in the gym is completed as she always does and always has, she's the ultimate professional.
“I think everybody knows about her situation off the pitch and the way she handles that situation is something I admire so much about Steph as a person. For me personally, what she's done for me in good moments, bad moments, she's the person I look to all the time as almost like a figure who I learn off, a mentor in the way.
“At the minute when Steph doesn't play at City I'm the captain, but she's our captain and I lean on her for so much advice and every day I try to take a little bit from Steph. How she acts, how she speaks with the girls, how she deals with certain situations. She'll be massively missed around the group because she brings something no one else does, but what an unbelievable person and player she's been for the women's game. I really hope she stays around it because she'll definitely be missed by me, but also by the women's game.”