Happy Birthday to England's most capped woman footballer, Rachel Yankey OBE - 37 today please log in to view this image And a bit of a cult heroine in the early 2000s at Fulham when the MAF funded ladies team were scaring the pants of all the opposition. This snippet was typical of those heady days: "On a day when the entire Women's Premier League programme was wiped out due to waterlogged pitches around the country, BBC Sport Online's women's football correspondent Tony Leighton checks out the rise and rise of the English game's first professional team. England striker Rachel Yankey hit a hat-trick as Fulham handed Ipswich a 10-0 Women's FA Cup third round hammering to send out a warning to the Premier League's National Division sides. Yankey, one of England's scorers in last week's Euro 2001 play-off victory over the Ukraine, took her season's goal tally to 38 while Norwegian international midfielder Margunn Haugen also weighed in with a couple of goals. Fulham have set themselves an ambitious target of winning not only their League but also the FA Cup and London County Cup - and it's a target which Ipswich manager Derek Tarbard believes they are capable of achieving. Tarbard said: "They are a fantastic side. They play super football and they are the fittest team I've ever seen in women's football."
