Fran Kirby: 'Every time we win something at Chelsea I wish I could celebrate with mum'

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It is when she is successful, rather than when she is struggling, that Fran Kirby feels the void left by her mother’s passing most acutely. One year, mum Denise had left a note in her birthday card predicting that she would play for England. Today, that message appears less like wild maternal optimism than a prophecy, as her glories both individually and for her club accumulate faster than she can compute. Whether she is winning a fourth league title with Chelsea, or finding herself named this week as player of the season for her selfless yet ruthless performances, she cannot help but be assailed by sadness as she wonders what Denise, who died when Fran was just 14 after a brain haemorrhage, would have made of it all. “It’s one of the biggest things I’ve found out during my career,” she reflects. “When I’m winning things, achieving things, those are the moments you want to celebrate with people, but you can’t. A big part of my life was my mum growing up. “Now I’m not able to share all this with her, to have those emotions with her, and I really struggle with that, because I know she would be so proud. Any time we win something, that’s when it sets in. It’s the evening after, when everything is coming back down. It makes you think more about the people you’re missing out on celebrating with.” Kirby does not want this to be a maudlin tale. She has endured enough anguish in her young life, having been tipped by Denise’s death into a grief and depression that led her to step away from football altogether, to concentrate instead on trying to be a normal Reading teenager. At 27, she deserves to revel both in her own myriad accolades and in the collective feats, from reaching the last four at the 2019 World Cup to playing a Champions League final against Barcelona just 11 days ago.

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