Manchester United were not going to make a quiet entrance into the women’s game. Their first match in the women’s Championship, the second tier of women’s football, was a 12-0 thrashing of Aston Villa.
It sent shockwaves through the sport — a professional team backed by their men’s club, entering into a semi-professional league that often was watched by only a few hundred fans, did not sit well with many.
Yet those building blocks, on which United won the Championship with a goal difference of plus-91, have meant that five years on, they are battling for a league and cup double. On Sunday they will face Chelsea in the FA Cup final at a sold-out Wembley Stadium.
“It’s a bit surreal to be honest, from being at Leigh with some girls that have never played full-time . . . to competing for the double, it’s almost immeasurable,” Katie Zelem, the Manchester United captain, said. “If in another five years we’re that far advanced then Manchester United will certainly be one of the biggest teams in Europe.”
Zelem is one of the four “originals”, as she describes it, part of the first professional United team, unveiled with significant fanfare, in the summer of 2018. Despite having hefty financial backing, recruiting that first squad was trickier than it may initially sound.
Advertisement
United could not simply cherry-pick the world’s best players — first they had to convince new recruits they were serious about their women’s team, given they were decades behind leading sides such as Arsenal. For years, United had a successful academy but no senior team for their best talents to go to.
Then they needed to find players with the potential to play for United in the Women’s Super League, but who were also willing to endure a season in the Championship. The “originals” — Zelem, Leah Galton, Ella Toone and Millie Turner — perfectly fitted that mould.
“For me, it was my childhood club but I’d just won the league and got into the Champions League at Juventus so it was a huge gamble for me to come back and play in the Championship,” Zelem explained. “I actually did an interview with Leah [Galton] and she’d stopped playing football completely, so everyone was in really different circumstances.”
United were unacquainted with the demands of running a professional women’s team, and quickly identified that if they were to be successful, they would need experience.
They found it in the head coach Casey Stoney, the 130-cap England defender. “It was going to be a blank canvas, and I was going to get to build this club from the bottom up,” Stoney said, when asked why she applied for the role. “They knew that I knew women’s football better than they did, and they just supported me through that process.”
Advertisement
The return of the likes of Zelem was an important step to show academy prospects there was a route to first-team football. Zelem had joined United when she was eight, and used to be a flag bearer on Champions League nights but, back then, that was as close as she could get to Old Trafford given the lack of a senior team.
Promotion was swiftly secured to the WSL — the real test of the team that Stoney had been tasked with building. Their first season in the top flight in 2019-20 was a relative success, as they finished in fourth position, but 13 points separated them and the top three of Chelsea, Manchester City and Arsenal.
There was a feeling United were lacking experience and leadership, and the signing of the US internationals Tobin Heath and Christen Press brought proven winners. It also drove commercial interest — in the first three days of their shirts being on sale, they outsold any of their male counterparts.
Those signings were glamorous, but the conditions that they were training in were not. Having made a temporary switch from training in Leigh to Carrington, the men’s training ground, the area they were using was sub-standard.
Players were unable to shower in between training and meals before makeshift portacabins were installed, and gym facilities were in a tented facility. It was understood to be a contributing factor to Stoney’s surprise resignation at the end of the 2020-21 season, feeling as though a club the size of United should have provided better for their women’s team.
Advertisement
United were at a crossroads when they appointed Marc Skinner as manager in July 2021. The Englishman was highly rated from his time at Birmingham City Women but was used to working with small budgets and overperforming.
While the reaction to his appointment was not universally positive, he quietly implemented his methods, one of his main aims being to transform United from a team that felt they were underdogs when facing the top three to a side capable of beating them.
“The Arsenal game at the Emirates was a turning point,” Zelem said of this season’s 3-2 victory won in added time by Alessia Russo in November. “Fergie time is what we used to call that at Manchester United. Those things don’t happen by accident, it’s not really something you can overly practise in training but when it happens once, then starts happening again, it becomes less of a coincidence.”
Arsenal made a world-record bid for Russo in January, but United’s hierarchy recognised no amount of money would be worth losing their striker to a title rival. Their title charge, which was expected to dissipate, is still alive with two league games remaining. They sit top of the WSL, one point ahead of Chelsea, who have played one game fewer. It is uncharted territory after three successive fourth-place finishes.
Playing Chelsea — who have won the past three WSL titles and the past two FA Cups — is always a stern test. They have an abundance of winners, as Willie Kirk, the Leicester City manager who was once Stoney’s United assistant, pointed out this week. United have never even reached a final before.
Advertisement
“I’ve always said that Man United needs to recruit winners before they’ll win,” Kirk said. “Chelsea have just got a squad of people with gold medals. I don’t know if they’ve [United] got enough gold medals, I don’t know if they’ve got enough know-how.”
On Sunday afternoon, there will be a definitive answer to that question.
Women’s FA Cup final
Chelsea v Manchester United
Wembley stadium, Sunday, 2.30pm
TV BBC One/iPlayer
