The Cult: Kelly Smith

Our latest inductee to The Cult is an_ England icon who's battled drink problems, serious injuries and her own introversion to become one of the most recognisable figures in the women's game. _You can (in fact you must) read our previous entries here.

Though she has become one of the most recognisable players in the women's game, Kelly Smith began her life in football with Garston Boys Club. Hair cropped short, gender hidden, she was the side's top scorer by the time she was seven. Soon enough, parents from rival teams began to complain. They eventually succeeded in having her removed from the side and the league itself.

In recent years, Smith has often talked about her anger at that decision. As a child, it must have been hard to understand the small-mindedness of the parents who were embarrassed to see their sons given the run-around by a girl. Nonetheless, Smith harnessed her frustration. For better and for worse, she seems to have carried that same anger for much of her career.

By 1996/97, she was an effervescent young forward with an all-conquering Arsenal Ladies team. She won the league in her first season at the club, scoring a brace in a title-clinching game against Liverpool. Just three days after her 17th birthday, she made her England debut.

She had soon relocated to America on a scholarship, becoming the first athlete outside of basketball to see her Seton Hall University shirt number retired. It was little wonder, considering that she had scored an unbelievable 76 goals in 51 matches.

Kelly's future in the game seemed limitless. Nonetheless, off the pitch, she was finding things difficult. A reserved character by her own admission, she started drinking to excess. Struggling to fit in and yet unwilling to return to England – in a flash of characteristic anger, she told the Sun that "women's football in England is a joke" – she was laying the foundations for a severe drink problem. When she suffered her first serious injury, that problem became unmanageable.

Having turned professional and joined the Philadelphia Charge in 2001, Smith had a relatively successful first season with the team. Unfortunately, she tore her anterior cruciate ligament in her second campaign and spent most of 2002 on the sidelines – only to reinjure the same knee the following year. It was at this point that her drinking began to spiral out of control.

In her frustration, her anger at not being able to play, Smith's life was unravelling. Eventually, her father flew out to America to bring her home. Back in England, she agreed to rejoin Arsenal. First, however, she spent several months being treated at the Sporting Chance Clinic – a centre set up specifically for athletes struggling with addiction. Back on English soil, her career truly flourished.

After well over two decades in football, with several hundred career goals to her name, Smith's playing career is still going strong. Despite nasty injuries even in recent years, she's shown incredible determination to continue playing at the top level. It's not often an outfield player gets a contract extension with Arsenal at 37 years of age but, in Smith's case, it's hardly a surprise.

She can now claim to be one of the club's greatest ever players. Likewise, she can claim to be one of the toughest, most durable footballers ever to have graced English football.

Having joined a girls' team in Pinner Park after leaving Garston Boys, a 13-year-old Smith was spotted by American scouts and offered a university scholarship – one which she couldn't actually take up until she had turned 17.

The decision to join Seton Hall University wasn't about the prestige and status of the college. At the time, England's Women's Premier League was miles behind the W-League, its American counterpart. The latter offered Smith a professional opportunity that she would never have been afforded in England, as well as sizeable crowds and serious support. However, before she could turn professional, she would have to do her time as a student athlete with her university team – the Seton Hall Pirates.

On the pitch, this was to be one of the brightest spells of Kelly's life. In her first season with the Pirates, she set several goalscoring records for the Big East Conference – her university league – and became the first athlete in any sport to be the conference's Offensive Player of the Year and Newcomer of the Year in the same campaign. Blessed with pace, natural finishing ability and the hunger to win, opposition defences simply couldn't handle her. In the following two seasons, she was leading scorer in both the Big East and the entire NCAA Division I – the USA's highest level of intercollegiate athletics.

Who could have predicted, then, that her career would have been teetering on the precipice only a few years after she'd fulfilled her dream of turning professional? Her recurring knee injuries with the Philadelphia Charge were the start of something much, much worse.

Looking back on those injuries, she's identified them as the catalyst for full-blown addiction. After she broke her leg playing for the New Jersey Wildcats in early 2004, she realised something was badly wrong. "I'd drink every day until I passed out, vodka usually, and usually on my own," she admitted in a 2011 interview with the Independent. Speaking at a Soccerex convention only a few months ago, she said: "I wasn't a very confident person at the time, I was quite shy. My way of expressing myself was through my football and, when that was taken away from me, I turned to drink".

Checking herself into rehab must have been a difficult decision for Smith. Now, though, there's no doubt that it was a turning point for her.

She recovered from her drink problem, survived and thrived. She's scored over 100 goals for Arsenal in two stints since then, winning five more league titles, numerous cups and a domestic and European Quadruple in the 2006/07 season – the Gunners' most successful campaign, bar none. In that glorious season, Smith scored 30 goals in all competitions. That was despite missing both legs of the UEFA Women's Cup final through suspension, after losing her temper in the semi-final and giving Brondby fans the finger.

At the time of her retirement from international football, in February of last year, Kelly had scored 46 goals in 117 appearances for England. She holds the goalscoring record by a margin of six, having surpassed Karen Walker's previous record of 40 goals in September 2010. As great moments go, that thumping finish against Switzerland must have been one of the most satisfying.

Though the Lionesses have never been on quite the same level as the United States, Germany and Japan, her individual contribution to the team was unparalleled. Former USA coach April Heinrichs once claimed that Smith would be an automatic choice for her team. Her Dutch counterpart, Vera Pauw, called Smith "the best player in the world".

How many footballers, of either gender, can claim to be domestic quadruple winners and record goalscorers for their country? How many can claim to have played at the top level well into their thirties – and to have overcome a crippling alcohol addiction in the meantime? How many can claim to be as determined, as resilient and as furiously competitive as Kelly Smith?

A couple have matched her for silverware, perhaps, while a whole host of unremarkable male players are much better known. As for the rest, the answer is: none.

Words: @W_F_Magee / Illustration: @Dan_Draws