Graham happy to swap the supermarket for Everton

Not long ago, Everton captain Lucy Graham was without an agent and working in Tesco to supplement her nascent football career. She was an assistant shopper, who “when people order their groceries online, goes around and collects it all for them”.

The 23-year-old who scored the winner in the Merseyside derby at Anfield in front of 23,500 fans in November is now among a handful of the Scotland talent pool – including Chelsea’s Erin Cuthbert, Arsenal’s Lisa Evans, Kim Little and Jennifer Beattie, and Manchester City’s Caroline Weir – plying their trade in the Women’s Super League. Scotland used to be barely on the radar and Graham (right), in a flurry of phone calls and Google searches, had to find her own agent. “Sometimes you’ve got to roll your sleeves up and do it yourself,” she says.

Graham has warm memories of the supermarket sweep that occupied her days from

6am until noon. The job was to support two training sessions a day, at a sports institute supporting Scotland national team players from 3-4pm, then an hour-and-a-half drive to Edinburgh for her club session, arriving home at 9pm: “I was burning the wick at both ends.”

She had a successful trial at Bristol, driven by the spell she spent, aged 17, in Sweden, playing professionally at Mallbackens. Last summer she signed for Everton, who finished second bottom of the WSL last season but are fifth before their game at Brighton today.

Graham speaks from Everton’s Finch Farm complex as Richarlison and Fabian Delph mill about by reception. “It’s just the norm,” Graham says

They will be sharing Goodison Park, too, next Sunday for the stadium’s first WSL Merseyside derby, Graham’s drive from distance – allied to a fumble from Liverpool keeper Anke Preuss – the

difference in their previous meeting.