For Katie and her fellow ‘Originals’ to have spent the last six years here – Ella Toone, Millie Turner and Leah Galton – 2018-2023 had been five seasons of steady progression, from Championship winners, to reaching a cup final, to securing a Champions League spot. So when Zel raised the FA Cup aloft at Wembley last month there was a palpable sense that this was the next step for the Reds, and the biggest one yet at that – a major trophy for every United fan inside the national stadium, as well as those on the pitch, to savour.
And with diehard United fan Katie firmly ticking both boxes, what a pair of arenas for her to sign off her time with the Reds – Wembley one weekend, and Old Trafford the next; the stadium where she used to watch the men play as a kid, and where she was even a flag holder on Champions League nights. “Coming through the Academy, they’d use the girls’ and the boys’ teams to do those flags, and it’s one of my fondest memories,” she told us in 2022. “We were a bit small for the massive banner in the centre circle, but we’d be the ones holding the Champions League flags by the goals. I remember I nearly hit someone – I was swinging it, giving it a good go and I think it might have been Denis Irwin! I thought, ‘oh god, I’ve nearly knocked out a legend!’”
Thankfully the Irishman survived the experience, while Zelem got to show off her flag-waving skills once more come full-time at Wembley last month, in what would prove to be her penultimate United appearance.
