Football News

The celebration said it all.

As Everton midfielder Issy Hobson slid across the Walton Hall Park turf, one hand clasped over the badge on her chest, it was clear that this was a moment destined to go down in Women's Super League (WSL) folklore. The teenager had just scored a 95th-minute equaliser against Arsenal, earning the Blues their first point against the Gunners in more than a decade.

More extraordinary than that, though, was the fact that - at just 16 years and 180 days old - Hobson had become the youngest goalscorer in WSL history. "I've been at Everton for my whole life so it's even more special," she told BBC Sport after her stoppage-time header had cancelled out Alessia Russo's earlier strike.

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"It's something I've been dreaming of since I started playing football and for it to contribute to getting a draw against Arsenal is the best feeling ever." Certainly, in what has largely been a torrid season for Brian Sorensen's side, this goal was a shining light - inspiring hope of better times ahead and offering a poignant, powerful reminder of what it is all about.

The point does not mean a lot in terms of its significance to the WSL table and yet it means everything. There are few things in sport more capable of eliciting pure, unbridled joy than an academy graduate getting on the scoresheet for the first time.

And, for the football romantics on Merseyside, Hobson's breakthrough moment will have been evocative of another memorable Everton goal. It was in October 2002 that a 16-year-old Wayne Rooney came off the bench to

Wayne Rooney Alessia Russo Brian Sorensen As Everton Arsenal