By Girls On The Ball
Amongst the wild celebrations that followed, the cameras panned to Fran Kirby standing in front of the travelling supporters, just drinking it in.
“I’ve made it no secret that when I retired from the national team, I felt that I wasn’t going to get a chance to play at Wembley again,” she reflects. “I knew the project at Brighton but I felt that maybe I would just be part of it and then once I leave, that it will build and keep going. It was more of a moment of reflection, a moment of pride, and a moment of probably, “Make sure you take all this in”.”
Unlike for most of her teammates and her club, this Sunday’s final against Manchester City will not be Kirby’s first Wembley rodeo. The 32-year-old is a seasoned visitor, having collected five FA Cup titles during her time at Chelsea and a European trophy with England on the famous turf. This one, however, feels a little different, the start of something building at a club that is continuously striving for improvement.
“An FA Cup Final is one of the best days of your life,” she says. “I’ve been lucky enough to have a couple there. To be able to do it with Brighton…and with these girls – you know, we’re still quite an inexperienced group – I’m really excited for them for them to experience Wembley. You can just talk about it but for them to actually be able to be there, it’s going to be so special.”
“Everyone handles [the occasion] differently,” she continues. “I think some nerves are good because it shows how much you care. I’m going to share what I need to share but also I just want them to experience it for themselves. I want them to have their own emotions.”
There is little question of Brighton’s ambition to challenge for silverware. In 2021, they opened a state-of-the-art training hub for their women’s side while just last month, they announced plans to construct the first purpose-built women’s football stadium in Europe. On the pitch, things have settled following a tumultuous few years following the departure of long-term manager Hope Powell in 2022. Two years and four managers later, Dario Vidošić took over the helm, securing their best WSL finish (fifth) in his first season.
Bringing in players of the calibre of Kirby has been key. At 32, she remains the heartbeat of Vidošić’s side, the catalyst at the centre of their attack.
“The most proud thing for me is coming to a team that really wants to push the women’s game,” she says. “I’ve always said that I want to play for teams who want to invest. I will push them and they’re probably sick of hearing from me as well because I’m really demanding. I’ve had countless conversations with the owner and he really wants to drive it. He wants Brighton to be the home of women’s football in the way that we play and what we give to the women’s team.”
“It’s not going to happen overnight”, she continues. “There are still many things that need to be put in place. I said when I joined, if you’re not really going to go for it then I’m not going to sing your praises. They knew where I stood with that… I’m just really proud to be part of another team, because Chelsea also had that, that wants to push the game forward and keep building.”
Success is not always linear and this campaign has thrown up a few challenges for the Seagulls. A seventh-place WSL finish would have been disappointing but, within the context of everything that has happened, perhaps unsurprising.
After Michelle Agyemang ruptured her ACL, they have been without a central striker since October.
“[An out-and-out number nine] is not a role that a lot of people can just adapt into. Madison [Haley] has done really well. Sometimes, I’ve gone as a false nine. Kiko [Seike] has also been [there]. I think it’s just to play what the opposition are and what strengths they have and how you can make their weaknesses become your strength.”
Off the pitch, the death of Rado Vidošić, Dario’s father and the Head of Women’s and Girl’s Coaching, in January at the age of 64 was difficult with their manager understandably taking personal leave to head back to Australia to be with his family.
There is a sense, therefore, that Brighton are playing for something more than just the badge. In their way of a first major trophy stands a formidable opponent. Manchester City are fresh off the back of winning their first league title in a decade. Brighton’s belief will come, however, from the fact that they beat Andree Jeglertz‘s side in the league under a month ago.
“We probably should have been 4-0 down at one point so we’re not naive to think that everything was roses,” Kirby reflects. “We really showed more of ourselves in the second half and I think that will give us confidence. On the flip side, there are a lot of conversations about how we cannot start like that again in an FA Cup final. That’s more like the stern warning… because we know the quality players they have and what they’re capable of. It’s just a case of staying in the game for as long as we can at the beginning and then growing into our flow and our rhythm. We know that there are going to be moments that we’re going to have to suffer because they are a quality side.”
“[Winning] would have a huge impact,” she continues. “The club is already going in the right direction with the way that it wants to build the women’s team… I think it would be a massive stepping stone.”
Whatever happens, Sunday will mark a significant moment in the history of the women’s team. For Kirby herself, a player whose name has become synonymous with Wembley over the years, it is proof that she still has a huge role to play and an opportunity to add a sixth winners medal to her already substantial haul.
(Images from Girls on the Ball, with additional images from IMAGO)
For more exclusive women’s football coverage, follow Girls on the Ball on Instagram, and sign up for FotMob’s free monthly newsletter – here.
Add FotMob as a preferred news source on Google by clicking – here.
PakarPBN
A Private Blog Network (PBN) is a collection of websites that are controlled by a single individual or organization and used primarily to build backlinks to a “money site” in order to influence its ranking in search engines such as Google. The core idea behind a PBN is based on the importance of backlinks in Google’s ranking algorithm. Since Google views backlinks as signals of authority and trust, some website owners attempt to artificially create these signals through a controlled network of sites.
In a typical PBN setup, the owner acquires expired or aged domains that already have existing authority, backlinks, and history. These domains are rebuilt with new content and hosted separately, often using different IP addresses, hosting providers, themes, and ownership details to make them appear unrelated. Within the content published on these sites, links are strategically placed that point to the main website the owner wants to rank higher. By doing this, the owner attempts to pass link equity (also known as “link juice”) from the PBN sites to the target website.
The purpose of a PBN is to give the impression that the target website is naturally earning links from multiple independent sources. If done effectively, this can temporarily improve keyword rankings, increase organic visibility, and drive more traffic from search results.