GAIL EMMS

The badminton Olympic medallist talks dodging Alan Shearer shots and her mum's Azteca heroics

- Chris Flanagan

Your mum Janice scored goals for England at the unofficial World Cup in Mexico in 1971, in front of huge crowds. When did you become aware of her football pedigree?

I was maybe seven when she got out a scrapbook and my nan said, “Look, your mum went round one defender, then the other defender.” It was the Mexico story. There are only six English people who've ever scored at the Azteca - Gary Lineker is top with three and my mum is next with two. They played in front of 90,000 people. When I was nine or 10, I did a show-and-tell at school of my mum representing England, at the Azteca, and the teacher was like, ‘Are you sure about this?’

The FA had banned women's football for the previous 50 years. Is it true your mum was later suspended for playing in the tournament?

She got a six-month ban, it’s laughable. They did everything right. The manager said they were going not as England, but as British Independents, but FIFA were like, ‘This is not a sanctioned World Cup’. She got sacked from her job, too - she told them she'd been selected to play in this tournament, and they said, “You're fired.” The team were mainly schoolgirls, because others were told they wouldn’t have a job when they came back.

You've recently written a book about the team, called The Lost Lionesses. How big an inspiration was your mum?

I do motivational speaking and when I tell people about my mum, they're dumbfounded about what happened - because of the Lionesses’ success, it’s started really clicking with people. A lot of the girls were so ashamed of being banned that most gave up playing. My mum carried on for a couple of years after hers was lifted, then she met my dad, you get married and have children - you don’t play football. That was society. But one of the girls, little Gill [Sayell], was one of the founders of Arsenal Ladies, which is a lovely story.