Hope

The story of the pioneering England women's football manager.
Hope Powell was a skinny little Black girl from South London who only ever wanted to play football. Brought up in a violent home, she was actively discouraged from playing. The original Bend It Like Beckham girl, this is the amazing story of how a kid from a Greenwich housing estate became one of the most influential women in world football.
A revered international footballer and then, for fifteen years, manager of England, Hope Powell will forever be the face of English women's football. She took the national game from amateurism to top-flight performance - and dedicated herself to opening up the sport to hundreds of thousands of girls and young women at the grassroots level.
A Black, gay woman who's been a relentless pioneer for equal rights, the story of her battles against authority are an object lesson in how determination and bravery can make a lasting change.

Hope Powell was a revered international footballer and then, for fifteen years, manager of the England women's football team. She now works as an elite coach and technical advisor around the world for FIFA and UEFA, and as an advocate for change and development in women's football. She has been coaching QPR's male Academy players, and working with women prisoners in Peterborough Jail. She lives in London.

Introduction
1 London in the Seventies
2 Three Lions
3 Paying to Play
4 From the Old Kent Road to Sweden
5 Croydon
6 Sweet FA
7 The Desk in the Corner
8 On to 2001
9 Pro License
10 Ups and Downs
11 2005
12 China, 2007
13 Big Steps Forward
14 No Hope
15 Top Ten
16 London 2012
17 2013
18 FIFA
19 2015 and the World Cup
Career Statistics as England Manager
Plates
Index