Bulkington's Lioness Laura Bassett made a special trip back to her first ever club to help inspire the next generation of footballers. The former England women's team defender went back to Bedworth United Football Club where she got her first start as a footballer.
She watched the girls team in action and joined in a session at the home of the Greenbacks as part of charity 'Play Their Way' campaign's ahead of the FIFA's Women's World Cup. The 39-year-old, who also played for Coventry and Birmingham City Ladies, described it as a 'full circle moment'.
The Women's World Cup gets underway next week and the former player, who retired in 2019, said she had high hopes for the Lionesses'. Her path to football started with her family as her father Keith and her brother Daniel both played for the team in the village where she grew up Bulkington Sports and Social Club and it was watching them on the pitch that inspired the mum-of-one to get into the sport.
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“She was about eight when she first started playing, she followed in her brother and dad’s footsteps,” her mum Marie previously told the Nuneaton News.
“She used to tag along when they played in matches and her dad used to play with her from the side-lines. We found her a ladies team in Bedworth and it just went from there.”
Little did they realise that their daughter would end up playing for some of the country’s biggest women’s teams as well as England.
“We always knew she had the tenacity and skill but she just kept going and going, she has made it where she is due to hard work,” Mrs Bassett said.
During her early playing years, women’s football did not receive the recognition or funding it does now. "It was a struggle to start with. We used to have to take her to all her games and provide the funding for everything,” Mrs Bassett said.
But a kind gesture made by a Bulkington businessman back when she was a teenager will never be forgotten by the Bassetts.
“Laura made her debut for England when she was 16 and when Adrian Piggon found out that she had to pay for her own boots, he gave her a couple of hundred pounds to buy some, which was so kind.” Mrs Bassett said, who is an Aston Villa fan.
It was during the Women's World Cup in 2015 that Bassett played a huge role in the England squad. But she was inconsolable as her injury-time own goal shattered England’s dreams of reaching the final of the Women’s World Cup.
But she was given a heroe's welcome in her home borough and was given a civic reception and award at the Town Hall in Nuneaton as well as receiving a special recognition award from Nuneaton and Bedworth Sports Form.
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