Sammy Rowland of Hashtag United winner of Mitre Golden Ball

On Sunday, ahead of the Women’s FA Cup final, Sammy Rowland of fourth tier, Hashtag United Women, was the recipient of the Mitre Golden Ball Award as the top scorer in this season’s competition with eleven goals.

Hashtag United were eliminated in the Fourth Round by second tier Coventry City but with hat-tricks against Bedford and Actonians and an incredible five goals away in a 10-1 win away to Colney Heath, the player signed from AFC Acorns last September had aready accumulated more goals than any other player in the competition.

Rowland finished two goals ahead of Rebecca Wyatt of Ashford United and Cori Williams of Cardiff City on nine. The highest top division scorers, who enter the competition at the Fourth Round stage, were Khadija Shaw of Manchester City with seven and Cup final match-winner, Sam Kerr with five.

Asked to pick out her favorite of the eleven she scored in the FA Cup, she chooses the second of her three goals against Actonians in December, a stunning shot into the top corner of the goal. “To be fair it was a great run by Malika (Apindia) down the left wing,” Rowland tells me, “she just cut it back to me and I just slotted it home.”

Rowland succeeds Chloe Williams of Liskeard Athletic who was the inaugural winner of the Golden Ball Award in partnership with Mitre awarded to the respective top scorers in the men’s and women’s FA Cup competitions. Accompanied to Wembley by teammates, Grace Gillard, Sasha Adamson and Hayley West, she was handed her trophy by former England international Fern Whelan.

A Manchester United fan, Rowland also had the honor of carrying out the match-ball in front of a world-record attendance of 77,390 spectators ahead of the two sets of players. They may have lost on the day to league champions Chelsea but Rowland got to see her favorites play in their first major final and as she told me ahead of the game,”I’m also excited to see Lauren James play.”

James, the former Manchester United forward, is one of the players to have broken into the England first team since they won the UEFA Women’s Euro last summer. Should she start in the World Cup finals, she is likely to be the only black player in Sarina Wiegman’s first-choice team, one more than the all-white team who triumphed on home soil last year.

I asked Rowland if she felt that England team represented her. “It would be nice to see more black players on the team. I was obviously still absolutely buzzing for the girls and what they done for England but it would be nice to see more girls out there of color.”

She feels the lack of black players in the Lionesses’ squad isn’t representative of what she comes up against in the FA Women’s National League (WNL). “Oh yeah, 100%. I fell like the diversity is there, just within the women’s national team there isn’t right now. Hopefully, going forward that will change.”

When I asked her who her striking influences were when she was younger, like many women currently playing in the game, she had to look to the men’s game for role models. “Growing up, being a Manchester United fan, I think Ruud van Nistelorooy (the joint-top scorer in the 2003/04 FA Cup) was one of my idols at the time. Some of the goals he scored, he just showed great composure on the ball. Of the current team, she admires Marcus Rashford, “obviously he’s in form this year as well, definitely looking up to him at the moment.”

With 26 league goals, Rowland has also top scorer for her club Hashtag United this season as they topped the regional WNL Division One South-East to earn promotion into the Southern Premier League next season, one step away from the professional second tier, the FA Women’s Championship.

Founded in 2016 by YouTube personality Spencer Owen, Hashtag United have used their own channel and social media platforms to gain a substantial following which enabled them to enter a men’s team into the English league pyramid. In 2020, they took over AFC Basildon FC to acquire a presence in the women’s game.

Speaking to me about Owen, Rowland told me “He just supports us so much, there’s probably only a handful of games where he’s not been there so it’s really good he gets involved with the women as much as he does with the men’s team. He’s just a great person to be around to be honest. Can’t fault him.”

For two years in succession, Hashtag United’s season was curtailed due to Covid-lockdowns. Finally, competing a campaign, they finished second to Billericay Town last season, but topped the league this time winning sixteen of their eighteen matches.

Should they finish top of the Premier League next season, Hashtag United they will be the beneficiaries of a rule change by the Football Association which will allow both the winners of the Northern and Southern Divisions automatic promotion into the national FA Women’s Championship, the second tier of the women’s game.

This season’s respective champions of the Premier League, Nottingham Forest and Watford, will this Saturday be forced to play-off in neutral Milton Keynes for the one promotion place available this season, with the losing team left to start all-over again in the same division.

Rowland believes the rule change was not before time. “I think it should have been in place from the beginning to be honest, it seems a bit crazy that you win the league and then you have to come through one more final play-off to try and get promotion. I think it’s just about time really.”

Going into the Premier Division next season, Hashtag United will be aiming to go straight through and claim the automatic promotion place. Rowland told me, “well, I know our manager (Jason Stephens) wants to go in and win it! We’d be silly to not go in it and hope. It would take a lot to go in and do that but I definitely think we’ve got the potential to go in and win it.”