“It was never about the money when I joined Arsenal,” says Steph Houghton. “Now I look back at those figures and I think ‘oh my god’.”

In 2012, Houghton was one of the best female centre-backs in England – for which she was paid £4,000 a year by Arsenal, the most successful women’s team in the country at that time.

Bonuses and extra work as a part‑time coach and club ambassador lifted that figure to £9,000.

“I was living in London, although I was fortunate that the club paid for the apartment,” Houghton, who won 121 caps for England and captained her country from 2014 to 2021, told BBC Radio 5 Live Breakfast.

“At the same time, to live off that and try and save for a house, simple things we all do as human beings, it was quite tough to do.”

Houghton, who retired from playing at the end of last season, is credited with helping to change the course of professional football for women.

In her autobiography Leading From The Back, the three-time Women’s Super League winner details the struggles she endured as she fought for better pay.

Today, some of the very best players in the WSL are reported to earn hundreds of thousands of pounds, external a year.

It was a different story 12 years ago.

“I came from the north-east. My mum and dad did not have much money and I’m from a working class family,” Houghton told BBC Radio 4’s Woman’s Hour on Friday.

“I came from a pit village [South Hetton], so for me money was never really a driving factor.

“But I had the opportunity to move to Arsenal. I wanted to go there and win trophies, I wanted to establish myself in the England set-up and play with the best players.”

Houghton, who joined Arsenal in 2010, became increasingly determined to stand up for herself when it came to re-negotiating her contract.

“To be going in there by myself to speak about something was tough because the guy that I was speaking to, Vic Akers, who is an absolute legend in the women’s game, to have that conversation with someone who has brought you to the club was tough,” she adds.

“It was scary and it was daunting. I would have been only 22, 23 then, so quite young in terms of not that much experience.

“But I had to stand up for myself.”

Houghton went on to become the first female player to appear on the cover of Shoot magazine, was made an MBE and received the Freedom of the City in Sunderland.

She also led England during a significant period of growth for women’s football, managing increased scrutiny, expectation and media attention, as well as guiding the next generation.

Under Houghton’s captaincy, England reached the semi-finals of the 2015 World Cup, 2017 European Championship and 2019 World Cup.

But the former Sunderland, Leeds and Manchester City player missed out on a place at Euro 2022, having not played for several months because of an Achilles injury, and was also left out of Sarina Wiegman’s squad for last year’s World Cup.

It was a painful end to her England career.

Instead of helping England beat Germany at Wembley in the Euro 2022 final, she watched the game on television at home.

In March, at the age of 35, she announced she would retire at the end of the 2023-24 season.

“My last conversation [with Wiegman] was when I found out I wasn’t going to be in the squad [for the 2023 World Cup],” added Houghton.

“I was at St George’s Park, I was doing a Nike appearance. I had a missed call on my phone and it was from her. She was at St George’s and she asked ‘would you mind coming to see me?’

“I was like ‘well, OK, this wasn’t really planned’. By then I was done with fighting the whole situation and I just had to accept it.

“For me, the situation could have been dealt with a little bit differently but I know I did absolutely everything and I had an unbelievable England career.

“I did struggle during the Euros because I knew how close I was to being potentially part of that squad. But that did not change the way I felt about the girls winning something that we had worked so hard to try to achieve.

“I took myself away and went on holiday with my family and tried to process it that way. I sat at home and watched them lift the trophy.”

Houghton married Stephen Darby, the former Liverpool and Bradford City defender, in June 2018. Three months later, he was diagnosed with motor neurone disease.

In her autobiography, she tells how she was in a different country on the day he was diagnosed with the rare condition, external that affects the brain and nerves.

“I was away in Spain playing for Manchester City,” she told Woman’s Hour.

“Being his wife and not being there for that conversation, there is a lot of guilt, a lot of anger and a lot of frustration because we had two years of tests, two years of different conversations and MND had not really been mentioned.

“To hear that over a phone call when you are away from your family, you don’t know how to react.

“There was one appointment in Sheffield where there was a slight mention of MND.

“I remember going on Google when we got back to the car. After reading the first line I closed my phone and said ‘no, he has not got that, that’s not us, he’s as bubbly as ever and we’re still doing normal things’.”

On the diagnosis, she added: “We’d just got married and had the best day ever.

“To then hear that news, the emotions were hard to put down in words.”

Houghton said she could have carried on playing but wanted to retire to spend more time with her husband.

“Sometimes I got conscious of looking too far ahead in the future and sometimes when something like this happens – a disease like this – it’s important you live each day as it comes,” she said.

Houghton, who has been working as a BBC Sport pundit among other roles since retiring, said Darby has been fitted with a feeding tube in an attempt to gain more weight.

“He didn’t really react as well as we thought he would in the first couple of weeks but now we have come out the other side,” she added.

“There’s been lots of change in terms of me retiring, finding my new way and also the stuff with Stephen as well.”

Houghton told 5 Live Breakfast the couple have considered starting a family.

“We try and do things together as much as we can with our family and yes, of course, we want our own family one day,” she said.

“That might happen over the next couple of years. We have got to try and dream big in terms of we are in a positive position and we have an unbelievable support network.”