A scorer of the most sensational goals and a history-maker as the first goalscorer in a professional women’s Manchester Derby, the Scotland international wrote her name into the history books in the 2019/20 campaign.
We know her favourite goal was (of course) the rocket against Manchester United at the Etihad Stadium - also the Nissan Goal of the Season winner by a landslide vote of 79%!
But was it scored in her favourite game - or was there another clash which stands above the rest?
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In our latest instalment of My Favourite Game, presented by Marathonbet, the mercurial midfielder shares her most memorable match...
The pick
I’ve had a few favourite games but the one that stands out is the 2019 Continental Cup Final against Arsenal.
It was my first trophy with City and I remember it really well. We played well and there are some really good memories of the day.
The game went to extra-time and penalties so it was a hard-fought win but we deserved it in the end.
Whenever you play Arsenal or Chelsea, it can go either way - they’re always tight games - so when you win against those teams, it means a lot more, especially in a Cup Final.
Pre-match
I do think back now and remember that everything seemed to go well.
Little things like the fact it wasn’t far to travel, my dad was able to come and watch and it was an early kick-off.
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We got up, had breakfast and then it was the game - you don’t have much time to think. I like games like that - you’re in the game before you know it. For me, that works better.
At breakfast, we were really quite chilled. We’re always quite relaxed - we all know we have a job to do and you focus on that.
We’d stayed at the stadium so we didn’t need to travel on the coach, which is unusual for away games, and we’d had a walk around the pitch the night before to get a feel.
Some players are noisy; others are quiet but that day, there wasn’t time to overthink things.
It was a weird feeling staying so close to the place we were going to play but I liked it.
We were confident. We knew what we had to do to be the better team and although it went to the wire, we knew we had it in us to come out on top.
The game
The game itself went well for me and the team.
I look at it back as one of my favourite days playing for City.
I was named Player of the Match, which was nice, and I was taken off a few minutes before full-time of extra-time. I was exhausted!
I think Nick Cushing could see I was struggling a bit so he took me off before penalties, which I was okay about!
the Penalty shoot-out
I remember thinking it was quite tense. I would have preferred to win in 90 minutes!
It’s harder because you get to the point that you want to win so much, your head goes!
You get into a weird zone of wanting to win, although you’re not sure what’s happening because you’re so tired.
I knew - with the people we had taking penalties and with Karen Bardsley in goal - that we had a good chance.
KB is great at saving pens and she saved a few.
I was confident that we had the players to do it. Look at Claire Emslie - she came on off the bench, had about one touch and then scored a penalty!
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The celebrations
Of course, penalty shoot-outs can go either way.
You can even be looking likely to win and then in a few penalties, it’s on its head.
When you know that someone’s stepping up to take the winning penalty, that’s an amazing feeling but I’ve also been there when it’s been missed and lost the game.
Janine Beckie scored the winning penalty and it was just a moment of relief, being so happy to win.
It was good to get off the mark with my first City trophy. I hadn’t won a trophy for a few years.
We went on to win the FA Cup Final as well and it was great to be part of a winning team again.
There’s no feeling like winning a Final. It was a really good day all round.
