In the words of Julius Caesar, “experience is the teacher of all things”. As Marc Skinner and his Manchester United team made the long climb to the royal box at Wembley, they will have known how important the lessons of heartbreak last time out were in enabling them to lift the Women’s FA Cup for the first time in their history.

With a dominant performance in a comfortable 4-0 victory over Tottenham, the demons of that defeat by Chelsea were firmly put to bed. On that occasion, United were outdone by the guile and nous of more seasoned winners. Against Robert Vilahamn’s fledgling side this time around, Skinner’s side were determined to put on an accomplished display that illustrated why many considered them favourites.

United are full of players with the knowledge and abilities to shine on the most important of stages. From back to front – Mary Earps to Rachel Williams – Skinner trusted in those who have been most tested at this level.

For Earps and Ella Toone, Wembley is their second home, where both have experienced so much success for England in recent years. The latter certainly has an affinity for scoring on this pitch. Many will remember her goal against Germany that helped the Lionesses lift their first major trophy, while she also got on the scoresheet in the Finalissima victory in 2023.

The 24-year-old has struggled for form at times this season but has had the firm support of her manager throughout. Skinner knows exactly how crucial Toone is to making United tick and her undeniable ability in front of goal. His faith in his midfielder paid off as her spectacular opener deep into first-half stoppage time changed the direction of a finely balanced encounter. That awareness – developed from countless such moments – to arrive in the right place at the right time swung the momentum in United’s favour.

In Williams, who doubled the score early in the second half, United possess experience in abundance. Her ability to find the back of the net has been crucial to much of United’s success over the past couple of seasons. The 36-year-old could have written the book on succeeding on this stage.

In 2012, she played a crucial role in Birmingham City’s FA Cup final victory over Chelsea, scoring a stoppage-time equaliser to send the tie to extra time. She may not start all that often under Skinner, but her manager understands how little fazes Williams at this stage of her career and has relied on her more and more over the course of a difficult season.

Williams may be familiar to many of the opposition in the Women’s Super League but her ability to frighten the life out of defenders is unwavering.

The timing of her runs, her vision to see the play two steps ahead of everyone else, and her seemingly telepathic propensity to nodding the ball into the back of the net are all key to her success.

In a fairly uneventful first half, Williams was a constant thorn in the side of Tottenham’s centre-backs. The veteran will have been frustrated that she missed two early gilt-edged chances, rising high, time after time, to meet Katie Zelem’s deliveries into the box. She was not going to miss a third and when the Spurs defence let her run in unhindered at the far post once again, she made them pay.

Lucía García was the other shining star of United’s triumphant afternoon. The Spanish forward has had to be patient under Skinner and that has paid off in recent months. The 25-year-old was another runner-up with this team last year but looked at home this time around with her indefatigable running, high energy levels and strong technical abilities. Her double came as Tottenham started to look weary: firstly alert to a huge distribution error from Becky Spencer before reacting quickest to a second ball.

Spurs, in contrast, were naive and struggled to match the intensity of their opponents. The occasion clearly got to Vilahamn’s side as a normally creative team struggled to fashion any opportunities of note. The captain, Bethany England, came closest when she crashed a header off the crossbar in the second half, but by that time the game had passed them by. It was, of course, Tottenham’s first time at Wembley and their first appearance in a major cup final and they will hope that this experience serves them as well as it did their opponents last year.

For United, success has finally arrived. After a troubled season, Skinner and his players return to Manchester in celebratory fashion. Winning a first piece of silverware is always hard. Having broken that duck, they will look to build the foundations for more success.

Cam McCarthy was born on April 1, 1995, the same day the Fremantle Dockers played their first ever game in the Australian Football League. As a kid, he’d worm his way down to the fence at Subiaco for Dockers games. His dad constructed special chairs so Cam and his mates could see properly.

He was an excellent cricketer, and never saw himself playing professional football. Always a small kid, he shot up nearly a foot in his draft year. He was working as an apprentice plumber but was suddenly on every club’s radar. It was a crack draft, with Marcus Bontempelli, Josh Kelly and Zach Merrett. Playing for Western Australia against the Victoria Country team in the national championships, McCarthy kicked the winning goal on the siren.

In every draft profile, there is a variation of the same phrase – “nothing seems to faze him.” “He is this year’s Mystery Man,” Emma Quayle wrote in The Age. “He’s this year’s X Factor, this year’s raw-but-exciting prospect, and whatever other cliches you wish to apply.”

Carlton selected another WA boy, Patrick Cripps, at pick 13. Fifteen seconds later, McCarthy was a GWS Giants player. He was “player number two, one, four – zero, nine, one.” By the weekend, he was living at Breakfast Point with all his teammates. It was like the Truman Show, he later said.

A self-confessed “mummy’s boy,” he ached for a return to Western Australia. Homesick, struggling with his mental health and squeezed out by the abundance of forward talent at the Giants, McCarthy asked to be traded home, which at first was denied.

Along with picks seven, 34 and 72, he eventually headed to Fremantle in return for pick three. “It’s the happiest I’ve been,” McCarthy told the West Australian. “I’m in a real good space at the moment. Being able to go home to family and friends and speak to people and hang out with people outside of a football club where you can sort of get away and it’s not all football, football… that’s been massive for me.”

I was scrolling my phone when I read that Cam McCarthy had died. “Forgotten former AFL star dead at the age of 29” was the headline. 250 footballers have represented the Fremantle Dockers. Four have died since 2018. Three were in their twenties. One, Harley Balic, died in a hotel room shortly after he turned 25. Several years earlier, in an interview with Code Sports’ Paul Amy, he spoke of “getting to the highest level, which you’d dedicated your life to, and then all of a sudden being a nobody.” He’d been “wandering around, feeling pretty lost”. “I guess the way I left football, unfinished, left me lost in the world.” Nothing I’ve ever read about a footballer flattened me as much as that last sentence.

When I write about footballers, I’m often struck by how little I know about them. We assess them, rank them, re-order them, build them up, and pull them into line. When they retire, some get laps of honour, some go straight into the Hall of Fame, and some are farewelled via a media release. But they remain a grey blur.

It has a lot to do with the modern media, and the ever-widening gap between athletes and those who cover them. But it’s also related to the standards they’re held to – the ton of bricks that comes down on them if they say anything remotely interesting or provocative, or if they’re a little bit different.

McCarthy’s mates and Dockers supporters called him “Dardy McCrafty”. On various podcasts, he was joshing with his mates, saying the type of things that would have had him crucified in his playing days. When men that age are talking shit together, there’s always the sense that there’s big things being avoided, or rushed through, or skirted around.

But he’s also funny, irreverent, honest. He always asks questions of the interviewer – about their interests, their lives, their views. He speaks about how stressful life was as a professional footballer. He says he never felt like he belonged at the level. “I’m a bit of a weirdo,” he says. “When people say ‘you’re a weirdo’, that’s a compliment. I don’t want to be a sheep.”

This is a football column, but it isn’t a football story. These tragedies play out across Australia every day. But each time a young footballer dies, I think of something Wayne Campbell said at Danny Frawley’s funeral – “Can we, as a footy industry, look after each other just a little bit more?”

It goes beyond black armbands, and beyond bouquets in the goal square. I hope I never see “forgotten footballer” in a headline ever again. I hope the next time we call a footballer soft, or put them up for trade bait, or censor and sanction them for some trifling indiscretion, or refer to them as “player number two, one, four – zero, nine, one,” that we remember we’re talking about a person. Some of them weird, some of them different, all of them flawed, all of them worthy. Vale Dardy McCrafty – you were much loved, and you’ll never be forgotten.

In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Children, young adults, parents and teachers can contact the Kids Helpline on 1800 55 1800. Help for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people is available on 13YARN on 13 92 76.