Steph Houghton: England’s ‘icon’ who has led the way for women’s football

Steph Houghton hopes she leaves the game “in a better place than when I started” and few could disagree that she has achieved just that.

The significant contribution she made will be recognised far beyond her 2016 MBE for achievements in women’s football.

After she announced that this season will be her last as a player, current Manchester City coach Gareth Taylor described her as “without question, an icon of the game”, while England wrote: “From leading the Lionesses to growing the women’s game – your impact will never be forgotten. A true icon.”

"I've given absolutely everything I can, but I am looking forward to a new challenge"

Watch @stephhoughton2's full goodbye interview

— Manchester City (@ManCity) March 27, 2024

Houghton’s haul of eight major trophies with City – four Continental Cups, three Women’s FA Cups and the FA Women’s Super League title – makes her the club’s most decorated player.

But she also won the WSL twice with Arsenal, along with two FA Cups and three WSL Cups. In addition she has 121 England caps, having announced her international retirement last summer having failed to make Sarina Wiegman’s World Cup squad.

She is a bona fide England great but it was with Great Britain that the Durham native made her breakthrough as a star of the women’s game as she announced herself on the world stage at the 2012 London Olympics, scoring three times – including a winner against Brazil in front of a Wembley crowd of 70,000 – despite playing left-back.

It represented quite the turnaround for a player who had sat out the 2007 World Cup and 2009 European Championship with a broken leg and cruciate knee injuries respectively, a curse which was to strike again most painfully when she missed England’s historic triumph on