Inside story of Liverpool's 'spine-tingling' Melwood return as LFC become one family once again

When Matt Beard was first appointed Liverpool Women's boss back in 2012, he and his players were invited down to Melwood to spend some time with the men's team.

They had breakfast with Brendan Rodgers' side and trained outside alongside the likes of Steven Gerrard and Luis Suarez. According to Beard, the Uruguayan was guilty of lunging in with an "over ambitious" tackle on Reds defender Gemma Bonner.

More than a decade on, Beard and Bonner - both enjoying second spells on Merseyside - find themselves back at Melwood once more. But this time, it's more than a flying visit, as the iconic training base is now the permanent home of Liverpool Women.

It's a move that has been several years in the making, with the need for the club to source an elite training facility for their women's team becoming particularly apparent when Vicky Jepson's side were relegated from the Women's Super League (WSL) in 2020. The Reds' exile to the Championship - just six years after they had won a second consecutive WSL title - painted a bleak picture of a footballing project that had veered drastically off course.

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The fact that relegation coincided with Jurgen Klopp's side lifting the Premier League trophy inevitably led to a discourse centred around the club's apparent negligence of its women's team. But, in many ways, relegation was the catalyst for the side's rebirth.

In the summer of 2020, a new board was appointed to help create a blueprint that would restore Liverpool Women to their former glory. Instantly, the team's new executive director, Susan Black, working