Content warning: This story contains details about alleged sexual assault. “It will come up at the most bizarre times. I smell the aftershave he used and it’s there.
“The last few years opened up a can of worms for me and I spent many nights laying there thinking about stuff, questioning things. I let it go and now I can sleep easy because I spoke my truth.” Advertisement Ronnie Gibbons is crying; uncontrollably sobbing, wiping her nose and apologising for the staccato nature of her words as the former captain of Fulham Ladies tells us how she was left feeling utterly isolated.
“Thank you for listening to me,” she says in a very quiet voice. Ronnie, now 44, feels her voice hasn’t been heard for too long, but today, she is waiving her legal right to anonymity to talk publicly for the first time about allegations of sexual abuse during her time as a footballer that she feels have not been sufficiently investigated. She is not the only one.
Nazir Afzal OBE, the former chief crown prosecutor for north-west England, describes how the police appear to have handled the case as “unacceptable”. Ronnie and three other former Fulham Ladies players spoke to the police at length in 2021 and 2022, detailing claims of sexual assaults when two of them were minors and of inappropriate and sometimes overlapping relationships with a number of young adult players. The man they accuse categorically denies their claims.
The police decided to drop the investigation and take “no .