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The Tilehurst End Advent Calendar: December 4

A summer signing for the women’s team is waiting behind door number four...

England v Serbia: UEFA Women's European Championship Qualifiers Photo by Matthew Lewis/Getty Images

Fara Williams

  • Position: Central midfielder
  • Nationality: English
  • Total Reading FC appearances: 8 (at the time of writing)
  • Total Reading FC goals: 5 (at the time of writing)

Memorable Moment

Summer arrival Fara Williams is arguably Reading FC's highest profile signing ever in any form of the game, having accrued more England caps than any other player in history (40 more than Peter Shilton and counting). In a result that pretty much ensured Reading's progress from the group of stage of the Continental Cup, the 33-year-old showed exactly the Royals have brought her on board. Reading travelled away to traditional heavyweights Arsenal on the 5th of November in a top of the table clash. A decent game exploded into life in the space of a few second half minutes, with Williams’ opener from a Lauren Bruton cross on 56 minutes cancelled out by Beth Mead's strike six minutes later. The game was back in the balance.

Looking around as they waited for kick-off, Williams was thinking about how she could help get the Royals back ahead... So she thought she'd have a go! Anne Moorhouse was off her line while talking to her defence, and the quick-thinking Williams noticed this, so when the whistle went to restart the game, drove the ball with swerve over Moorhouse and into the net. Talk about hitting straight back! Reading went on to claim a 2-1 victory and go level on points with the Gunners at the top of Group One South, with a game in hand.

Understandably, it caused quite a stir, and inevitably went viral with over a quarter of a million hits on YouTube.