Until 2017, Nikita Parris had never played in front of a huge crowd before.
That is despite being one of the Women’s Super League’s most prolific attackers – she recently became just the fifth player to register 100 goals and assists – and winning 74 England caps.
But like all the Lionesses’ Euro 2022 winners, Parris has seen up close what a major tournament can do for the women’s game.
This summer, it will be from home that she watches Euro 2025, having narrowly missed out on Sarina Wiegman’s squad.
“Although I’m an England player, I’m also an England supporter,” Parris tells The i Paper.
“I’ll watch the games and I’ll be supporting the girls. It’s a disappointment. I’m still processing those feelings given I had a good season.
“But ultimately, no matter what, I’ll still wear my England shirt and I’ll still want them to win – because they’re not just my teammates, they’re my friends.”
The scale of England’s class of 2022 is still difficult to measure, except in the hundreds of thousands of girls who took up football across the country as a result.
Parris, 31, is part of the generation who featured at the first really transformative Euros in the Netherlands five years earlier, but it had nothing like the feel of the Lionesses’ famous Wembley victory.
“You never really think about how much you’ve helped the game grow until you’ve actually retired and you’re looking back on your career and you think how many milestones you’ve achieved,” she muses.
“I’ve been with the England set-up since I was 20 years old, so it’s been a long time.
“Tournaments over the years have just got bigger and bigger and in 2022, it was an unbelievable spectacle, not just because we were at home and not just because we won it, but because of the legacy we left.”
Their hopes of repeating that feat this summer took a huge dent with defeat to France in their opening match – not least because the Dutch are up next.
Wiegman has hailed this as a “new England” and the players have been careful not to spend too much time watching back the final of three years ago.
“The legacy was amazing but sometimes you have to park that and leave that in 2022,” Parris says.
“Now we’re here in 2025 and you want to retain the trophy – and let’s have the mindset of ‘we’re going to go and win it again’.
“I think England have the quality to go on and win it and 2022 helped create the legacy of young girls wanting to be part of that England squad, whether you were a young U10s or an aspiring Lauren James wanting to get into the squad and now she’s there.”
Parris recounts recently visiting her own niece’s tournament at the same local team she had played in decades ago and being shocked by the huge number of teams there.
The National Lottery have invested billions towards the grassroots game to ensure that trajectory continues.
The forward is not just an inspiration to amateur footballers – Parris has also become a senior voice in the Brighton side that proved the WSL’s surprise package last season, finishing fifth.
She puts that down to two things – the club’s ambition and “an unbelievable coach in Rado [Vidosic], who knew football inside out and was able to take my game to a new level and a new level of leadership”.
That recent milestone of 100 goal contributions was even more remarkable given the two years she spent outside England playing for Lyon.
“My career’s been amazing,” she reflects. “I remember back in the 2018-19 season reaching the milestone of 50 goals for Manchester City so to go on and score more goals and assists, it’s amazing and shows my quality – and my longevity.”
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