It was while out shopping for Christmas decorations that Jill Scott’s mobile phone unexpectedly rang. She had just moved house and so an official letter from the Cabinet Office had not arrived with its intended recipient.

It all meant that the voice of a Government official on the other end of the line was initially the cause for some concern. “I thought I was in trouble, maybe I hadn’t paid a car-parking fine,” says Scott, the England and Manchester City Women’s midfielder.

Then she was told that she would become a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE). “I was in shock,” she says. “I was with my partner, Shelly, shopping for our Christmas tree and I think I dropped half the baubles. That didn’t go down too well. I was just in shock.