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Lucy Bronze: England v Norway 2015

£20.00

My Favourite Goal by Nancy Frostick.

There's something about long-range goals in football that gets to all of us. Even the most weary of football fans who have seen it all and had their hearts broken. We still turn up to watch seasons and tournaments despite that heartbreak in the hope that the outcome will be different this time and Lucy Bronze's goal made me believe just that.

England had gone out of the previous World Cup in 2011 on penalties, beaten by France but coming in to the 2015 World Cup things felt brighter, fresher and buoyed by the success of the London Olympics in 2012. Norway are not easy opponents in women's football and when England went 1-0 down you wondered if this was going to be heartbreak all over again. Then Steph Houghton gave us hope before Bronze stepped up with a thunderous shot - the type that, as a kid playing in the garden, you pretend you've scored in a crucial game with the commentator screaming your name.

It was a prefect hit, hung in the air just long enough that fans forgot to breathe for a minute, and late enough in the game that you knew it was the decider. Obviously the tournament still ended in heartbreak for England but for just that moment the sheer perfection of that goal was enough to make us believe that it had to be England's year.

Nancy Frostick is a Sheffield Wednesday writer @TheAthleticUK

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