England’s most capped ever player, awarded an MBE and veteran of three World Cups and the London 2012 Olympics.
Where do you start with Reading FC Women midfielder Fara Williams – who announced her intention to retire from playing at the end of the 2020/21 season.
Williams, who’s career began with Chelsea and took in spells with Charlton Athletic, Everton, Liverpool and Arsenal before she arrived at the Royals in 2017, is a pioneer of women’s football, a regular goalscorer and free-kick specialist and was awarded an MBE for services to the game in 2016.
The London-born midfielder has a host of personal and team accolades to her name including FA WSL titles with Liverpool in 2013 and 2014 as well as the FA Women’s Cup in 2010 with Everton.
In terms of the Three Lions, Williams made 172 appearances scoring 40 goals in an England career that saw a runners-up spot at Euro 2009 and third place at the 2015 World Cup.
In 2017, it was a bit of a coup for Reading to sign Williams and certainly had this website sitting up to take notice. We weren’t the only ones as Royals manager Kelly Chambers writes on the club website about her first encounter with a legend: “I remember meeting Fara for the first time, and – I’m not going to lie – I was a little nervous
“I met a woman who was crying out to love football again. It was great to see her, at the age of 32, still have the hunger and drive of a young female footballer starting out.
“As much as Fara was going to come to Reading and help us as a club to push on, she also had a desire to want to learn and develop as a player and that was so evident on the training pitch every single day; it was so infectious to everyone around her.”
The Football in Berkshire team will thoroughly miss watching Fara in action at the Madejski Stadium and we’d like to wish her the very best for the future.
