In a wallpapered living room with swirl-patterned carpets on Longwood Avenue, a residential street in Cowplain, 11 miles north of Portsmouth, the Harwoods are flicking through old photo albums, one of which contains a Christmas reunion here in 1983. John’s and Kathleen’s eyes light up as they recall the fun and games their children, Colin and Janet, had with former neighbours, Paul and Jillian Anne Ellis.

These days the latter is best known as the USA women’s football coach, who was born in Dover but grew up in Hampshire before moving to northern Virginia at 14 with her parents in 1981. For Jill, a self-proclaimed “Pompey lass” but a naturalised US citizen, victory over the Netherlands in Lyon on Sunday will garner successive World Cup wins. “She grew up over there,” says 81-year-old Kathleen, pointing across the road to No 7A. “We will probably record the final so that we can stop it and keep going back over it.”

The Ellis family arrived in the village after Jill’s father, John, a former Royal Marine who coached the Navy and also worked for the Football Association, was transferred to the commando training centre in Lympstone before moving to the United States to set up a soccer academy in 1980.

It was at the then dominant Braddock Road Youth Club and Robinson Secondary School that Jill began to play football on a regular basis, before going on to earn an English scholarship at William & Mary College and a master’s degree in technical communications from North Carolina State.

John and Kathleen Harwood - neighbours of United States women’s team manager Jill Ellis when she was a child. Photograph: Ben Fisher

“If she had not gone to America, she probably would not have been in football,” explains Jill’s brother, Paul. “Back then it was 100% a male game. She would have been on a completely different path if my parents did not take that decision – and it was a huge risk on their part – to move to the States. But taking that risk ultimately paid dividends for Jill.”

Paul recalls exploring the nearby woods; bike rides to Havant and Waterlooville, building go-karts, going swimming – and even recycling newspapers – together as kids. “There were no video games, no cell phones so we were outside all the time,” he recalls. “That was the beauty of it. We knew what time dinnertime was and we would just show back up at six o’clock – it was just a different era.”

Laughing, John, aged 90, says: “We took them out to Queen Elizabeth Forest, just up the A3 here, when they were around five or six, and it was ever so muddy and they climbed up this bank and you have never seen such a mess. The four of them always had a whale of time.”

Jill walked from home to Padnell Infant School, and then Padnell Junior, where her mother, Margaret, was a dinner lady, before two years at Cowplain Comprehensive, now The Cowplain School. At the former an admissions register details that a five-year-old Jill joined on 9 September 1971. But Jill is not the only manager with World Cup pedigree to have gone to school here; there is a slice of pride that the England manager, Gareth Southgate, also attended Padnell Infant from January 1976.

It was at Padnell Juniors that Jill began to enjoy her sport, impressing in hockey, rounders and track and field – but especially as a centre in netball. “With her on the team, you knew you had a good chance of winning,” says Lesley, a former teammate.

USA National Women’s team manager Jill Ellis pictured (holding ball) in the Padnell School Netball team photo (1976-1979) Photograph: Alison Hoy

But it was at break times that the opportunity to play football presented itself. “There was a group of 10 to 15 of us from our class that every day – morning, lunch and afternoon – would have about a quarter of the playground, and we would make it into our own little football pitch,” recalls Jill’s former classmate, Jonathan Grace.

“She was probably the only girl playing with us. There was no animosity but back then, in the 70s, it was quite unusual to have a girl interested in football enough to play it. I do remember she was as good as, if not better than, the boys. That sticks in my mind. She was not just joining in, she was really very good.”

Another friend from 5O and 4S, classes which were named after the initials of the teachers, Mr Oldacre and Mrs Stephens respectively, says: “One day she came in and she was really red in the face because it was a hot summer’s day and she had been out playing with a tennis ball in the playground, playing football with the boys. She was quite often away doing her sport. I remember in rounders, she used to just whack the ball and off she would go. You knew whatever sport you were going to do that, if Jillian was in it, she was either going to come first or near first. She was always sporty – but she was bright academically, too; she was just Jillian. She has done amazing, hasn’t she?”

Roger Osborne spent 38 years as a teacher at Cowplain Comprehensive and was the head of physical education during Jill’s studies. “We would have had internal conversations about her as a department; she was very good, very accomplished at sport and academically as well,” says Osborne, now the chair of governors at Padnell Infant School. “I remember being at a cross-country event and she was just way out on her own, very comfortable, and I thought: ‘You could be a good athlete, if you wanted to be.’ It was hard to know what direction she would go because she could do everything.”

A secondary school classmate, Nikki Thompson, says: “There was a gang of us that used to hang around together – we were the quiet ones, the misfits that were not popular or fashionable, and because Jill was sporty I guess she fitted in with our crowd. Her hair was a lovely honey colour and it was in a short bob, like a Purdey-style haircut. She was really sporty – if there was a team, she was on it. She was the protégée, so to speak, a star pupil.”

Jill’s parents will watch the final on a big screen at home in Florida while her wife, Betsy, plus Paul and his children, will be at Stade de Lyon. America will be glued to Sunday’s showpiece, as will many of Cowplain’s 10,000 residents almost 4,000 miles away. “I usually go for the underdog but because of Jillian, I’ll be cheering for the US,” adds Grace, and he is not alone.

USA National Women’s team manager Jill Ellis pictured as a child with her parents John and Margaret and brother Paul.

“I will feel quite chuffed watching, to think I knew her,” says Osborne. “Jill does not seem to be loud or vocal, to shout or scream like many coaches do, and that is the way she was in school. She was quietly determined to be successful. Every school has someone who makes it in a big way in life, and she was one of ours, so that is quite nice.”