Growing up in the former pit village of Killamarsh in northeast Derbyshire, Bright, 29, spent her early years around the family's stable yard of horses and was riding by the age of three. She said horses were her "life rather than a hobby" and attended competitions with her family every week, but as her football career progressed she had to make a choice. She is now barred from horseriding by her insurers.
Sheila Edmunds, the president and co-founder of the Doncaster Rovers Belles where Bright played from 2009 until 2015, said: "She was always so driven and, eventually, she knew what she wanted to do, which was to play professional football.
"I think it was the season where we won the league that made her realise what she wanted to do, and gave her the hunger for it. She's a quality player, and it makes me really proud to watch her in the World Cup and think wow, we had a little bit of input into her development."
Bright was nine years old when she stumbled into football by chance after going to watch a friend training for the Killamarsh Dynamos, her local club, simply because she was bored.
Mick Atherton, the club's chairman, said: "We played her up front and in that first year she scored 80 goals. She wasn't the tallest but she was really bubbly and she wanted to get involved in everything at training, she was always the one setting the balls out."
This story is from the August 19, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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This story is from the August 19, 2023 edition of The Guardian.
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