Lioness Georgia Stanway gave up football at the age of 12 after being told she was no longer allowed to play with or against boys due to FA rules.
She could have gone on to be a professional in another sport after becoming a county standard cricketer and a promising table tennis and netball player – but fortunately returned to football.
Georgia, 23, first started playing aged four for Furness Rovers Boys, based close to her home in Askam, Cumbria, and played for the club’s under-sixes, sevens, eights, nines and tens.
The club’s chairman Steve Liddicott, 69, said: “She played in our boys’ team until she was 11.
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“But we didn’t have any girls’ teams and she was the only girl.
“She had to go to a girls team, but the league and the other girls teams weren’t too happy as she played a different game to the others.
“She didn’t play like a girl plays or how they used to play then. She played like a boy.
“She was always in the thick of the action and liked to prove she was as good as the boys. I think it helped her development to play in boys’ teams.”
Luckily, the FA changed its rules shortly afterwards and Georgia was able to rejoin
Furness Rovers before a trial at Blackburn Rovers – who signed her aged 13.
Georgia, who is in a long-term relationship with Toulouse rugby league full-back Olly Ashall-Bott and now plays for Bayern Munich, is from a supremely talented sporting family.
Her mum Joanne ran for Great Britain at the youth Olympics. Dad Paul is a PE teacher and competes in Ironman competitions. And her brother Wyll is a goalkeeper for Chester FC.
Steve said: “You can’t teach someone to kick a ball as sweetly as she kicks it. She has always been able to kick a ball really well and she is a natural tackler.”
Speaking about Georgia’s extra-time winner against Spain in the Euros quarter-finals, Steve added: “I just thought, ‘What are the Spanish players doing backing off her? She is going to shoot’.
“Then she did and like everyone else, I leapt off the settee.”
Georgia said: “I remember joining Furness Rovers Boys. They were my first football team.
“My brother was four years older than me at the time, so I just used to go along, kick a few shins, and think I knew what I was doing. I loved it.”
She added: “At the age of 12 I could no longer play with the boys.
“I literally played every other sport. At the time I was playing country cricket, I was really enjoying my table tennis, my netball, I was literally just doing everything that I could.
“But I really loved football and knew how much I’d missed it in that year.”
