Alex Scott has spoken for the first time about her secret long-term relationship with fellow Lioness Kelly Smith, saying she fell “madly and deeply in love” with the striker as a young player.
The BBC star, now 37, will speak candidly about their romance in her new memoir, How (Not) To Be Strong, and her subsequent heartache when they split - but says she wouldn’t change a thing.
At the time, both women had their demons. Kelly, who is six years older than Alex, was in the grip of alcoholism while Alex’s traumatic upbringing with her controlling father had left her vulnerable.
When it came to writing the chapter which revealed that football ace Kelly had been her first love, the deeply private Alex said she nearly couldn’t bring herself to do it.
But speaking at the book launch in London, she said it would have been “cheating” to leave it out.
Alex, watched from the audience by her mum, explained: “I went back and forth on whether I’d actually be writing the chapter. But then it was one of those moments, I’m writing this book and I want to tell everything. I thought I’d be cheating you all if I didn’t put that in there. And for me, it’s like that first love story, I fell madly and deeply in love. And yes, there’s that heartbreak and those things, but it’s a huge part of my life and I wouldn’t go back and change that.
“Because that feeling of love and that excitement and what it gives you, it needed to be in there.”
England team-mates Alex and Kelly both signed for Arsenal in 2005.
Kelly, then 24, joined after a long stint away in America, while Alex had been playing for Birmingham.
In 2009 they transferred together to play with the Boston Breakers, one of seven teams in the inaugural Women’s Professional Soccer league, with both women moving back to the UK in 2012, when the women’s GB team were playing in the London Olympics.
Kelly, now 43, has since married management consultant DeAnna Dobosz, with whom she has two children.
She first came clean about her drink problems in 2009, explaining that she turned to booze after suffering many injuries as a young player in the US. “I’d start drinking to try and make me feel a bit better,” she said. “When I couldn’t play through a broken leg, through knee surgery, I’d be drinking, I’d be depressed, I’d be having negative thoughts all the time.”
In 2004 she returned to England and checked into rehab, getting help from Tony Adams’ Sporting Chance Clinic. She said the treatment had been “tough”but insisted it was behind her, explaining: “I was just numbing myself with alcohol. I felt better for coming out the other side.”
She has said that her second stint playing in the US was far more enjoyable, because she had Alex by her side. “This time, with the improvements I had made within myself, and with Alex there to bounce things off - somebody who knew me inside and out - it was a totally different prospect.”
Scott’s book, which is released on Thursday, details every aspect of her life including her traumatic upbringing with her estranged father Tony and her football and broadcasting careers.
She will tell how Tony, who left the council flat in Poplar, East London when she was eight years old, wouldn’t allow any sort of physical contact between them. Saying that her best friend Regan Coleman was in the audience, Alex said: “I remember going round to her house and her hugging me. I didn’t know how to hug because we grew up in an environment where we weren’t really allowed to show love or express anything.”
And speaking directly to mum Carol she said tearfully: “You said you wished that you were able to enjoy the feeling of hugging your kids whenever you wanted. The fact that he wouldn’t even let you do that, that we weren’t allowed to receive that love from you as children, Mum, I’m so sorry.”
Now Carol has been diagnosed with MS and Alex said it was the turn of her and older brother Ronnie to do the caring. “I need you to fight this one last battle from within, and show that courage you’ve always had. This whole time, you’ve been strong for Ronnie and me, let us be strong for you.”
Alex declared: “I wrote the book to be free. I wrote the book for my mum and I wrote the book just to have that weight lifted, to move forward.”
Do you have a story to sell? Get in touch with us at webcelebs@mirror.co.uk or call us direct at 0207 29 33033
