08 June 2023 , 15:37
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On the final day of the WSL season, nowhere played host to a more distinct exhibition of football’s contrasting emotions than Reading’s Select Car Leasing Stadium.
On the pitch’s right side, Emma Hayes’ reigning champions romped through another trophy-lift, the novelty of the occasion incredibly not wearing off on the club or its voracious 6,000-plus faithful - even after 13 previous iterations.
Some 20 metres to the left stood the remains of Kelly Chambers’ Reading. Most were motionless, taking in the Blues’ raucous celebrations as they attempted to reconcile their own sentencing to the Championship after their eight-year tenure in the top-flight came to a withering halt.
“We didn’t have to stand there,” concedes Reading centre-back Gemma Evans. No, but the 26-year-old Welsh international did. “It was hard, but it was our choice. Sophie [Ingle] is a Welshie. And Chelsea deserved to win the title, so on a personal level I wanted to be respectful to that. I also wanted to support Soph in achieving that amazing title win.”
The moment was a minor, superfluous detail on an otherwise seismic day for Reading. Their relegation to the Championship was confirmed, the future of the club, players and staff plunged into uncertainty. Ten days later, Reading Women announced their return to semi-professional operation.
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The moment was also a telling demonstration of Evans’ ethos: a fiercely loyal character, regardless of the conditions.
“It’s been a tough year,” is the overriding caveat as Evans speaks over the phone from her family’s home in Canada. And though a soft chuckle accompanies the words every time, there’s the undeniable tone of relief in Evans’ voice as we use the past tense.
The post-match scene held a cruel air of familiarity to it. In October, as Switzerland marauded in celebration after their dramatic World Cup qualifying play-off victory over Wales, Evans played the onlooker, navigating another failed bid for a first-ever major tournament, this one snatched away in the dying seconds of extra-time.
Gemma Evans and Deanna Cooper after Reading's 3-0 loss to Chelsea confirmed their relegation (Photo by Eddie Keogh - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)Four months earlier in June, Evans’ grandmother passed away following a long battle with dementia. Evans spent the six months prior making a weekly five-hour round trip between her full-time job with Reading Women and the Rhondda in Wales to be caretaker, giving her mum some much-needed time off.
On the Monday before Reading’s do-or-die final day showdown with Chelsea, Evans’ uncle, her grandmother’s son, passed away. His birthday fell on Saturday, the day Reading slumped to defeat.
“Obviously, playing football, those 90 minutes, it’s always in the back of my head that it’s my uncle’s birthday, but I kept willing myself to just perform,” Evans says. “Give everything you can to this team and forget everything else. Just focus on football.”
Evans does not entertain much pity, nor is she one to mince her words. “It’s been mental. But it is what it is, isn’t it?” is an admirable maxim of hers.
When asked if Reading’s woes were a by-product of the league’s fissuring financial chasm between clubs bankrolled by Premier League sides and those not (a warning sung stridently by manager Kelly Chambers), Evans notes the influence but lays the repercussions elsewhere.
“In terms of recruitment, I agree with that massively,” Evans says. “But I also think as a team we just didn’t produce, so we can’t really blame it on anything. Still, when you’re limited on money, you can’t recruit the top-class players.” She pauses. “You can’t recruit [Bethany] England.”
Evans’ sentiments echo those of former and current players who argue that the club’s tribulations are linked to limited backing. England’s record-breaking transfer (and 13 goals in 11 league games) inspired Tottenham’s salvation. Reading’s January transfer window, meanwhile, recorded only one incomer, former Royal Jade Moore on loan from Manchester United.
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Kelly Chambers, Manager of Reading, speaks in a huddle after the team's defeat to Chelsea (Photo by Eddie Keogh - The FA/The FA via Getty Images)In a statement explaining Reading’s new semi-professional status, the club stated that funding the women’s team was a £100k endeavour a decade ago. In the last five years, owner Dai Yongge has invested approximately £6m, with just under £1m invested across the 2022/23 season.
The investment is notable, but unsustainable in a league in which top clubs Chelsea and Arsenal recorded turnovers of more than £6m across the 2021-22 season. Manchester City's total was over £4m. Reading recorded a turnover of just over £577,000.
A turnover of 10 percent of the league’s top three puts any club at a disadvantage. Still, the sense that Reading’s women’s team were viewed as secondary ran deep.
“There was a sense that we were the outcasts of the club sometimes,” Evans admits, adding that the coveted Euros bounce in regards to attendances skipped over Reading for most of the season, with a running joke emerging that every game was an away day.
"Sometimes I felt the club didn't give much for the women's team."
When asked to summon a favourite memory, the relegation battle is difficult to bridle. Evans recalls playing three different formations in one match in desperate attempts to stymie opposition.
“West Ham at home,” Evans finally offers. “That was the most enjoyable. We hadn’t won in a long time (four league matches). It felt like we’d won the World Cup.”
A nine-match winless streak followed, eventually culminating in relegation.
Reading's Gemma Evans is dejected at the end of the match at TottenhamRelegation marked the end to a tumultuous season and Evans’ two-year contract at Reading. The club’s part-time announcement indicates a likely exit, with four WSL clubs interested in the defender, according to the BBC.
The interest is more than reasonable. The Welsh international ranked third highest in the WSL for shots blocked (19 in total) this season, sixth most per 90, though she clocked 600 minutes more than five players ranked above her.
Her 3.5 clearances per 90 (58) saw her rank in the league’s top 10, while the volume of minutes demonstrates the responsibility taken by the 26-year-old, who has already notched more than 50 caps for Wales.
Evans doesn’t deny that WSL is her standard, but she remains tough on herself.
“I think I did [showcase everything I was capable of], but not every game,” she says. “Which frustrates me. I think I could’ve put myself on a better stage, but I think I have produced where I needed to. My basic mark, which is quite high, I hit every game, but I wanted to always be better and some games I wasn’t.”
Next season, Evans wants to continue the challenge.
“Everything new is always really scary because like a lot of people I’m not a fan of change, but you have to push yourself out of your comfort zone to reach your goals,” she says. “I’m only 26. I’ve still got a lot to develop and I’m willing to learn, so it’s about finding the best place for that.”
Finding the best place will be paramount to Wales’ bid to reach a first-ever major tournament. Next year’s Women’s Euro2025 qualifiers represent a last chance for stalwarts Ingle and Jess Fishlock. Evans has formed a resolute centre-back partnership with Manchester United’s Hayley Ladd.
“I think [Euro2025] is our time,” Evans says. “It has to be. We have to make it our time. Girls are getting on, we’re going to lose players if we don’t qualify.”
Wales' Gemma Evans celebrates scoring against Kazakhstan (Photo by Ian Cook - CameraSport via Getty Images)It’s a conviction that underpinned Evans’ season and will come to the fore this Saturday. Evans is undertaking the Welsh Three Peaks Challenge to honour her late grandmother and raise money for Tŷ Pentwyn, the nursing home that took care of her in the days before her passing, as well as the local dementia well-being group Still Me, Pontypridd.
The endeavour will be emotional. There’s also the unspoken poetry of the challenge: conquering three literal mountains to draw a firm line under a year in which Evans was perennially climbing personal and professional ones.
Has she trained? “I’m going to wing it,” Evans quips, though her earlier conviction betrays her.
“I’m of the mindset that if you say you’re going to do it, then you’re going to do it.
“I’m a professional athlete, I know it’s going to be difficult. I just think the occasion of it, who I’m doing it for, it doesn’t matter if I’m out of shape if I get to do this for her.”
It’s not difficult to glean the sense that Evans has endured plenty in the last season to make a 17-mile long (27.4km) slog with a 2334 metres (7657ft) ascent in 24 hours feel almost paltry. The mountains she has had to climb are steep, some insurmountable.
What’s three more?