BREAKING NEWS; Bristol City excellent star sends return warning to…

The Bristol City and Scotland striker sits down with the Mirror to discuss her return to the Women’s Super League with the Vixens ahead of the 2023-24 season

The temptation is to label this a redemption story.

But let’s be clear: Abi Harrison has not returned to the Women’s Super League to redeem anything. The 24-year-old Bristol City striker isn’t concerning herself with lost time and its recoupment. Neither is this about validation for a team bidding to confound football’s status quo as one of two top-flight women’s side without respective Premier League backing (Leicester City is the other).

Harrison has returned to the WSL with Bristol City Women after two seasons grafting outside the top-flight for nothing more than simple enjoyment.

 

“If that’s your cliché answer, then it is,” the Scotland international tells the Mirror. “We need to know our place, know our worth. We’re not there to make up numbers. But if people think we need to redeem ourselves, if people think we’re a write off from the start, that’s on them. I’ve experienced the highs and lows of Bristol City in four and a half years. So first and foremost, I want to enjoy this.”

You can be forgiven for feeling that Harrison not wanting to tie anything grander to her hard-fought return to the top-flight can risk feeling underwhelming, or maybe even a tactical ruse.

City are the league’s fresh underdogs. The squad — a plucky medley of academy talent, hungry loanees and various experience — is significantly less extravagant and well-known than those of rivals.

 

But speaking after another “enjoyably hard” pre-season training session under manager Lauren Smith, Harrison is in a particularly philosophical mood. The word legacy crops up more than once, prompting an ever-important reminder that Harrison, at 24 years old, is still technically young, a fact belied by her CV and the responsibility that has long sat upon her shoulders.

In Harrison’s four and a half years in BS3, she has “seen it all.” The short of it reads like a post-Covid women’s football Bingo card: A move to the WSL. An ACL injury. A global pandemic. Relegation. Promotion.

 

But where the former Celtic and Hibernian player vowed defiantly two years ago to reinstate Bristol City to the top-flight, upon doing so, the striker is less hung up on past or future promises now.

“There’s an element of looking back on my career and not enjoying the moments enough,” Harrison says. “And don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed that promotion. You can see the smile on my face now as I talk about it.

“But before I came here, I was watching a clip of Leah Williamson speaking about winning the (2022) Euros, and how you will constantly chase that feeling again, probably without ever being able to achieve it.

“So it’s nice to look back, but I don’t allow myself to get caught up in the moment because it’s such a precious moment. And I think as a footballer, until you hang up your boots, you just go onto the next.”

Harrison’s more placid character is in stark contrast to the iteration in April who, after City roared four goals past Charlton Athletic, was a cavorting image of catharsis in front of an adoring Ashton Gate fanbase.

Gleefully draped in a Scotland flag, the striker bellowed hoarsely into reporters’ microphones that the day was in fact the best of her life.

That iteration of Harrison will return upon stepping out onto the Ashton Gate pitch against Leicester City later this month, a prospect that rouses a wild smile on her face. The return will be welcomed. Harrison’s passion, while intense, is often critical to City’s success.

“She gets the game, she’s great to work with and she cares, so her emotions are sometimes on the top but I like that,” head coach Smith said of Harrison earlier this season.

Harrison’s vigour and versatility, along with the mutual respect between Smith and Harrison, has seen the latter deployed all over the pitch.

 

“I’m the sorest loser you will ever meet,” Harrison says when asked about Smith’s multi-use of her. “Even if I’m playing as a striker, I’ll do a last-man challenge, I’ll keep the ball off the line. If she tells me to go into goal, I’ll tell her she’ll get the best out of me up top, but I won’t argue. It’s win or lose for me. If you don’t win, there’s no point in doing it.”

The size of club that Bristol City is, the history that we have as a women’s side, we need to be ambitious. We need to stake our claim.

“We can’t be ridiculous. It’s going to be a challenge. But where we might lack in some things and finances, we make up for in other aspects.”