I agreed to sign for Leeds United when I was 15 years old. I studied for my GCSEs at home and then moved over to Leeds in the summer of 2000. I was into my third season when I was in a car crash in the summer of 2002. I have been in been in a wheelchair ever since.

Woah! What’s that big thing coming towards me? Oh, it’s that Big Fate Train we sometimes have to face that can knock us right off the track we were seemingly happy on, setting us rather haphazardly on to another bumpier track, needing a lot of work on it to make the ride a bit smoother. I found myself facing this train when I was 18 years old. I was a fit, sporty, apparently healthy girl on the verge of becoming truly independent and going to University to study a Sports degree. Then I was knocked down by a complete collapse in my health and I had to cope not only with the physical changes to my body but also the mental ‘stuff’ of having to re-evaluate what my life was about after such a radical change of path.