Playing league football on a nationwide scale was a new experience for practically every player who stepped up from regional competitions to take part in the WFA National League following its inception in 1991.

Not so Kerry Davis, an England international since 1982 and for four years in the late 1980s a star of Italy’s national Serie A Femminile, founded in 1968 and – unlike the WFA’s amateur set-up – a semi-professional league.

Trailblazer Davis, who was England’s first national team player of African heritage, played for Lazio, Trani and Napoli in Italy, returning home to re-join her first senior club Crewe Ladies before starting her National League career with Knowsley United and then becoming a major trophies winner at Croydon.

Comparing the well-established Italian league with its then nascent English equivalent, Davis recalls: “It was far more competitive in Italy at that time. I’d say they had probably the best league in Europe. 

“I was contacted by Lazio after I’d played for England in the Mundialito (international women’s tournament) and I went over there because I wanted to have a football career, to play full-time, to be able to train more than once a week. That was the ambition, to try to make a career out of it.

 “As a part-time player it was free boots and other kit – tracksuit, bags, coat etc. You didn't have to fund any of that yourself. But in women's football back then you couldn’t become a millionaire, you couldn’t retire from your football earnings, and eventually I took the decision to move back home and get a job.

“I worked in Stoke-on-Trent in a sports shop. It was a job I liked, partly because I got to have first look at the new football boots that were coming in! But like the other players at the time, I was paying subs to play.”

In both seasons that Davis played for Knowsley she collected runners-up medals, losing to Arsenal in the 1993 League Cup final at Wembley and a year later to Doncaster Belles in the FA Cup final at Scunthorpe.

“Playing at Wembley is a great experience,” says Davis, “but we didn’t play well that day against Arsenal so it wasn’t that great. We were a bit unlucky in the final against Doncaster, though. We played well but it just didn’t work for us.”

Shortly after that FA Cup final Davis moved to Croydon, wooed by player/manager Debbie Bampton, whom she had played alongside both for England and – for just one season – Trani in the Italian league. 

Like her later experiences with Knowsley, Davis – and this time Bampton too – had to settle for runners-up medals in both Serie A and the national Cup.

All that was to change, however, as the prolific striker’s switch to Croydon was followed by League and FA Cup triumphs – including an incredible double in 1995-96, winning the League on goal difference ahead of Doncaster Belles and beating Liverpool on penalties to lift the Cup for the first time.

Davis says: “Croydon had some great players and good friends of mine as well, players like Hope Powell and Brenda Sempare. So it wasn’t a difficult decision to join the club. I’d been based in Stoke until that time, but I moved to London and got a job in a sports shop in Covent Garden. 

“Up till then women’s football in this country had been dominated by Arsenal and Doncaster, but Croydon broke that domination and I think it was a good thing for the League – and it was good to play a part in that.”

Davis collected another League winner’s medal with Croydon in 1998-99, though shortly before the end of the season she left the club and so missed out on the second double the club achieved in 1999-2000.

Instead of sticking with what had become the nation’s best women’s team, Davis joined a Millwall Lionesses outfit whose best days were behind them.

FA Cup winners in 1990-91 and triumphant in the finals of both the League Cup and FA Cup in 1996-97, they were now struggling at the wrong end of the top flight and would be relegated at the end of the 2000-01 campaign.

Davis says: “Josie Clifford, an old friend, had gone to manage Millwall and she asked me to help out. Lou Waller, one of my best friends, was also there and it was a joy to play in a club team with her.

“I’d played for England with Lou but never for a League side. I played centre half at times as well as centre forward while I was with them. I could still play, but I was 38 and I didn’t even finish that (relegation) season off. There were about three games to go when I called it a day and retired.”

Hanging up her boots in May 2001, Davis brought to an end a career that had not only brought her major trophy triumphs at club level but also 90 international caps, a runners-up medal at Euro 84 and a goal haul of 43 that made her England’s record scorer until 2010.

Looking back with justifiable pride, she says: “My ambition was to play at the highest level possible and see how good I was playing against the top players. 

“So playing for England was always on my radar, to become the best version of myself that I could. And I think I achieved that.”

Davis did indeed achieve her ambition, as acknowledged not just once but twice in 2024, 23 years after her retirement. In March she received the Football Black List’s Keith Alexander award as a pioneer and then, two months later at the FA Women’s Football Awards, she was given a lifetime achievement award.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Thanks to Kerry Davis for the images.