Ashleigh Neville joined Tottenham for their first Championship season in 2017 and knows how big the gap was to Arsenal and how far her side have come. “Five or six years ago we’d get battered six- or seven-nil by Arsenal and you’d always dread playing them. I feel like no one had that feeling against them this time,” the full-back says of the 1-1 draw in November that saw Arsenal’s first dropped points of the season.
“I remember the 10-0 [in the FA Cup in March 2017] and then I remember playing them last season when we drew them in the Conti Cup: 2-2 and then lost on penalties. I remember celebrating drawing 2-2 with them and a few of the girls looked at me and were like: ‘Why are you celebrating 2-2?’ I said: ‘I’ve been here five or six years now and all I’ve ever done is be smashed by Arsenal and I feel like we’ve achieved something by drawing with them – we’ve worked so hard.’”
Reflecting on the draw in November is “frustrating” though, with Neville having missed a golden opportunity to put Spurs 2-0 up shortly before the equaliser. “I’ll always look back,” she says of the miss.
Given the 28-year-old’s recent form in front of goal it is perhaps more surprising that she failed to score. Pushed further forward in games against Brighton and Birmingham, Neville scored twice, including breaking the deadlock in the second half of a 2-0 win against the latter. She has been named the Barclays FA WSL player of the month for February and is, fittingly given her journey with the club, Spurs’s first winner.
“I was on the bench against Brighton having had a bit of an injury a few weeks before and I got told to be ready at any point,” she says. “I was obviously expecting to go on at full-back and then Rehanne [Skinner, the Tottenham manager] called me over and was like: ‘I’m going to make a few changes here, I’m going to stick you on the right wing’ and I was startled. I’ve played there before but it’s probably been nine or 10 years.”
Neville came on in the 52nd minute and five minutes later doubled the team’s lead on the way to a 4-0 win. Against Birmingham she started in the more familiar right-back berth but was shifted forward at half-time and again it paid off, Neville scoring in the 66th minute.
Pushing forward has given her a new view of her position. “Going in as the higher player I’m always wanting to know what the full-back is wanting from me and it just makes me want to communicate more with the player in front of me when I’m playing at full-back,” she says.
Neville started as a striker when very young. “I played for a local girls’ team and I scored 86 goals in a season,” she says. “In one game I scored something like 11 goals – it was a bit of a crazy game.”
At West Brom she moved into the No 10 role, then was shifted to the wing. She remained on the wing at Coventry until the right-back got injured and she filled in. She has not moved since. “I’ve had great feelings in the last few weeks putting the ball in the back of the net,” she says. “But it’s just equal to putting in that last-ditch tackle where a player is going through one-on-one with the keeper and there’s a possibility of them scoring, or clearing it off the line.”
Neville is a tough tackler, with passion infused in her play, which sometimes irks rival fans. “I’m aggressive. I like to win the ball. I don’t really take any notice of fans or anyone that comments on whether they like that or not. There are obviously a few tackles that you get wrong and you mistime it but there’s no intent to hurt anyone”
Neville has had a new scenario to tackle at home too, her partner, Liz, having given birth to their second child, Remi, just over a year ago. They are also parents to six-year-old Blake.
“It’s great being a mum,” she says. “But I can’t lie, it’s tiring at times. There are times where I’m up in the middle of the night five or six times, whether it’s one of them or both of them. And then obviously I’ve got to come into training and push as hard as I can.”
The support from the club has been “amazing”, she says. “Whether it’s that I need to bring Remi in, for whatever reason, or whether I’ve told them that I’ve had hardly any sleep and I’m not feeling it and they’ve altered my day in training and at the gym, the support is there.”
Not working a nine-to-five means she gets to spend more time with her children. Two weekdays off allow her to do school drop-offs and pick-ups for Blake and she gets to spend time with Remi at swimming, sensory classes and soft play.
Does Blake understand what she does for a living yet? “I don’t think he quite understands. I don’t think he’s the kid that will go to school and say: ‘She’s a footballer.’ Whereas all of the parents that I see on the playground absolutely love it and I get their kids coming up to me saying: ‘I saw you on the TV last week’ and ‘I voted for you for player of the match’, which is quite nice. Blake’s oblivious to it at the moment, which is quite nice for me. I don’t get that I’m in the limelight all the time. Maybe that’ll change when he’s a little bit older. Whereas Liz, she’s all over it and can’t wait to tell other people what I do.”
Ashleigh Neville is the Barclays WSL player of the month for February. Read our interview with January’s player of the month, Leah Galton, here.
