Women’s World Cup 2019: Carly Telford hopes third time is a charm in memory of her mum

Carly Telford was 20 when she went to her first Women’s World Cup finals. This summer, now 31, she will go to her third. While this is an achievement in itself, this time it could be special: she might actually play.

With Phil Neville yet to decide on who is his starting goalkeeper, the Chelsea woman appears to have edged ahead of Karen Bardsley, England’s No 1 for the last decade.

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Special, but also bittersweet. Telford’s rise has come after a very tough year, personally. Last July her mother, Yvonne, died of pneumonia, a consequence of secondary cancer in her lungs and liver, having previously had breast cancer. Telford was devastated, but has found football both a distraction and an inspiration as she seeks to honour the memory of her mother and the support she provided to Telford’s career.

‘The best people in football’

Speaking on Thursday as the Lionesses welcomed the media to their St George’s Park base, she said of the year: “It has been a roller-coaster. I’m not going to lie. The first six months, I wasn’t sleeping. You put on a brave face but I wasn’t myself.”

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She looks around the futsal hall, indicating her team-mates doing their media duties, and adds, “but I have had some of the best people I have ever met in football support me, and get around me, the likes of Millie [Bright], Steph [Houghton], Ellen [White], Jill [Scott]… I have a really good role model in Fran [Kirby], who dealt with this [losing her mother] at a young age, and who spoke to me.”

The location of this summer’s finals adds to the mixed emotions. “France was where my mum always took us on holiday when we were kids,” she said. “It was her favourite country in the world, she worked there for a long time. It will be hard because I have so many good memories, and my Dad is like, ‘Mum would have loved this’, but at the same time I’m going to go there and try and make her as proud as I can as I know she will be watching over me.”

‘I felt like I was 10ft tall’

Telford smiled, and added: “But she didn’t like watching me anyway, she was nervous as hell. She’d come to games and end up sitting in a café outside.”

Telford was touched by the support she received from the Chelsea squad, who travelled en masse to the North East for the funeral. While there was no pressure on her to play again she said, “I came back to football straight away as it was the thing that took my mind off it. When I get on the football pitch I don’t think about it. Just a few moments when I think, I would love her to be here.”

Until this season, Telford’s England career had consisted of not much more than a handful of caps acquired over a decade, but now she feels at home. “When I have walked out for England in this last year,” she said, “I don’t know how to explain it, but walking out at Southampton against Wales it felt like I was 10ft tall, like I was always meant to be in that position.”

She is not, though, walking out alone. “I write my Mum’s name on my wrist. If I have a good moment you’ll see me kiss my wrist in games because I would love to give her a kiss and say I love you, but I don’t get to do that any more. When I win I will look up to the sky and give a shout out for her.”