Elise Hughes on winning the Championship Golden Boot

Sheffield United’s Isobel Goodwin – and five ahead of third-placed Annabel Blanchard, her teammate – to take the crown of Championship top goalscorer.

Among her goals were four in the 9-1 win over Durham; Palace’s first of the season, a 102nd-minute header to nick a point against Reading on the opening day of 2023/24; and a crucial winning goal against Birmingham City at the VBS Community Stadium earlier this month.

Speaking to Palace TV at full-time, Hughes said: “I just said to Sky then that it felt like a whole lot of tap-ins! But nah, honestly, it's class.

“Like, obviously personally, that's great for me. But the fact that it's helped the team in a small way is everything I ever wanted – and if I'm honest, it's my job, so I'm glad I was able to do my job!

“For the players, for the staff, they put a lot of trust in me. And I've just repaid them. That's all I can do.”

Hughes was desperately unfortunate to suffer an ACL injury in the penultimate game of the season at Lewes, but has no regrets following her team’s successful bid for promotion to the Women’s Super League.

She said: “If they [people] were telling me that this was going to happen, then I'd have to had to believe them – because this is unbelievable! I said just before we lifted the trophy: ‘I can't believe we've won the league.’

“And for me personally, I know it's been a difficult end to the year, but I said to the girls I wouldn't change it. I would not change it. If someone said at the start of the year to me, ‘this is how the last day of the season is going to go’, I'd have taken it, because the amount of people that are so happy that we've won this trophy is more to me than anything.

On the golden boot, she added: “I mean, for me, it was just about playing as many minutes as I could, and I've played a lot and I can only thank the staff for that.

“My teammates around me have helped me score the goals. I know they have. I'm not disregarding them. I'm glad that I could take responsibility when I needed to and as a player, that's all I can ask.

“The goals were an added bonus because I just love scoring, so I'm glad we won as many games as we did.

“Yeah, obviously, if you said you've got to pick one [to win], I obviously would have picked the league. But the added bonus of the Golden Boot is something that I take a lot of personal pride in – I probably won't right now, but in years to come, I'm sure it'll be one of my biggest achievements.”