In the 90th minute, with Chelsea cruising to victory against Arsenal, Fran Kirby latched on to an inviting pass from Beth England and felt her right calf cramp. Slow the replays and there is not even the hint of a flinch. Instead, as the forward takes her first touch she moves up a gear and accelerates, a heavier touch takes her past Lia Walti on to her left foot, and she clips the ball past Manuela Zinsberger into the far corner for Chelsea’s third.
“I was running and I was like: ‘Just don’t fall down, just don’t collapse,’” Kirby says. “That moment, when it comes, it’s impossible to keep going, but I could see I was one-v-one with the goalkeeper.
“My last touch was a really, really bad touch because I just couldn’t control the right foot; if that shot had been on my right foot then there’s no chance, absolutely no chance, that that would have ended up in the back of net. So that touch actually helped me but it also made it a more difficult finish.” Ball nestled securely in the corner of the goal, Kirby collapsed to the ground, leg aloft, desperate for a teammate to apply some relief.
There had been no need to prolong the pain, with the outcome settled, but the diminutive 27-year-old’s determination to finish the move, and the game, speaks of the electric form she is in; form that has seen her named the Barclays player of the month for January.
“When I set out at the beginning of this year it was never about those kind of things for me, it was just about getting on the pitch, staying on the pitch as much as I can and kind of seeing where it’s going,” she says. “So to be recognised is really nice.”
In December she overtook her friend Eni Aluko to become Chelsea’s record goalscorer. “I didn’t think about how many goals I’d scored. I thought about how many games I’ve missed with the club, in terms of illness, in terms of injury. I was thinking: ‘Wow, to achieve something like this after everything that I’ve been through at this club?’ It just rewards everyone who’s been patient with me.”
At the start of the season awards felt a world away. Nine months earlier, what began with bad chest pains turned into a lengthy spell out with the debilitating illness pericarditis, an inflammation of the fluid-filled sack around the heart.
It took six months of recovery and by that time the pandemic had hit. Conversely that stoppage helped Kirby reach the form she is in today.
“I didn’t think I would come back at all the way that I have,” she says. “I think Covid helped a lot. Obviously it was really disappointing – I turned into a fan last year and I was disappointed when the league stopped – but it allowed me to focus on things that I haven’t been able to focus on for such a long time.
“If anything I had a six-month rest, which is always a nice thing. I was still really poorly. I was able to just let my body get everything out it needed to get out. Lockdown for me consisted of running, gym work … things I hadn’t been able to do for the last five years because we’ve just had back-to-back tournaments or I’ve had injuries or the illness. Now I’m seeing the rewards.” Kirby says she arrived at pre-season feeling “a lot fitter than I have ever been”.
With the W-League and NWSL record goalscorer Sam Kerr recruited last January and the current European player of the year Pernille Harder joining in the summer, Kirby might have been worried about her future. “I don’t think that ever crossed my mind,” she says. “It was more internal, more when I was ill, when I didn’t know anything about who was coming in. It was thoughts of: ‘When I come back, am I gonna be able to get into that level again? I haven’t kicked the ball in six months, how’s that going to go?’
“When big players come in, they just raise everyone’s levels and that’s how I look at it. We’ve signed some amazing players over the years and I’ve always used it as a motivation.”
At times, the linkup play between Kerr, Harder and Kirby has been majestic. “We’re all very intelligent footballers so I think we all know and work off each other. Also, we have conversations. You can’t build relationships without understanding the player that you’re playing with. ‘OK, Sam, you want the ball in the space? Brilliant. Every time I get the ball, I’m going to play the ball into space.’ Pernille wants the ball to feet so she can drive. I know every time she gets it and she has space she’s going to drive, so I need to clear that space. It’s working out where everyone’s strengths are and also everyone’s weaknesses. It’s OK to be open.
“Maybe sometime I’ll say to Pernille: ‘When I’m out one-v-one with the full-back come and help me, come and support, I want to link.’ Admitting those things to each other really gives us a strong bond.”
Many, from across women’s football and beyond are taking great pleasure from seeing Kirby back playing. Her incredible form is a bonus. Is she aware of all the love, all the outpourings on social media? “Yeah, it’s really nice,” she grins. “I always try and tell myself not to focus on it too much, because football can be the best thing in the world, but it can betray you, at any minute. It is really nice at the moment. I think throughout my career I’ve had a real roller coaster with social media.”
The “love/hate relationship” is partly because, in her own words, “I haven’t been as consistent as I’d like to have been and I understand the frustrations that come along with that from fans”.
She had to come off social media when ill. “I wanted to keep it private, because I was ill and it was extremely difficult. And then on social media people are writing, ‘She’s done at Chelsea’, ‘Chelsea don’t want her any more’, ‘Emma Hayes is kicking her out the door’, ‘She’s not gonna come back’, and that was really tough.
“People don’t often take the time to write nice things. But when it is done is it’s really nice. I do think that women’s football is getting better. I think people are understanding the mental health side of things more and understanding we’re not going to tolerate abuse. We’ve seen a lot in the media recently about it all and people are now standing up to it and I think that’s really important.
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“I’ve always said we’re not just footballers, we’re human beings. Imagine coming home from work to people going, ‘You’re rubbish, you’re rubbish at your job’ every single day. It’s quite hard to be professional in that atmosphere. But it is getting better and I think the more love we share and the more kindness we share, the more it will spread into everyone else.”
Fran Kirby is the Barclays WSL player of the month for January. Read our interview with December’s player of the month, Leah Galton, here.
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