Alyson Rudd is a writer with The Times

The Times

The Times is a British daily national newspaper, first published in London in 1785 under the title The Daily Universal Register . The Times and its sister paper The Sunday Times are published by Times Newspapers Limited, a subsidiary since 1981 of News International...

 who writes about sport, mainly football, and literature in the book club section. She was born in Liverpool

Liverpool

Liverpool is a city and metropolitan borough of Merseyside, England, along the eastern side of the Mersey Estuary. It was founded as a borough in 1207 and was granted city status in 1880...

 in 1963 and grew up in rural Lancashire

Lancashire

Lancashire is a non-metropolitan county of historic origin in the North West of England. It takes its name from the city of Lancaster, and is sometimes known as the County of Lancaster. Although Lancaster is still considered to be the county town, Lancashire County Council is based in Preston...

. She is a graduate of the London School of Economics

London School of Economics

The London School of Economics and Political Science is a public research university specialised in the social sciences located in London, United Kingdom, and a constituent college of the federal University of London...

 but began her career in fashion before becoming a financial journalist. She started on sports journalism in 1992. She was an enthusiastic footballer with Leyton Orient Ladies. She is married, has two sons and lives in West London.

Rudd, a liverpool fan, suffered a slight loss of credibility when evaporating with rage in 2011 she described Wayne Rooney's acrobatic overhead winning goal (of the season) for Manchester United against Manchester City as an "easy" skill to perform. It is not known just how many overhead kicks Rudd scored from during her time with Leyton Orient Ladies.