While the highly-paid stars of the men's game are coining it in with multi-million pound salaries, Doncaster Rovers Belles have their own foreign star making her name in the FA Women's Premier League the hard way.

Tonight big name overseas Premier League football star Liz Hansen is pulling the pints at a Doncaster bar - just as she does most evenings.

The club's 24-year-old Canadian star striker is combining playing in the top tier of the game with paying her way by living and working at the Crown Hotel in Bawtry as a barmaid.

The hotel offered to help her with a job and lodgings when she came to Doncaster in the summer ready to start the new football season.

The Belles signed Liz after she played with one of their players, midfielder Jo Love, in a competition in Florida, when she was playing for a team called Cocoa Expos.

She has been playing football since she was aged 12.

Liz, from Cortes Island on the west coast of Canada, says she didn't need much persuasion to come to Doncaster and was quick to take the chance. She arrived in Bawtry on August 7.

She said: "I hadn't worked in a bar before, and it was great to be given the chance to live and work here. In the past I've worked in shops and restaurants.

"But this has meant that I can play for the Belles. I have to work late nights, often until midnight, but I don't have to get up early in the morning because the games are in the afternoon.

"A lot of women play football in Canada and I think the game is on a par with the game in England, although it has competition from hockey, baseball and softball.

"What I'm doing is a long way from the overseas stars who play in the men's Premier League - but I think it would probably do a few of them some good to do a job like this as well.

"I think it helps keep in touch with the people who watch football, and I like meeting the people in the bar.

"I don't think we will ever get the money that the men get. We do get paid for games, but it's just a bit of spending money and you need to have a day job, or a night job, as well."

Liz is in Doncaster until Christmas at least, and says the best thing about Doncaster is the people she meets.

Her boss Craig Dowie, a big football fan who follows Scottish giants Rangers, said: "She's very good - she pulls pints as well as she scores goals.

"She's really bubbly and always has a smile on her face. It is a really good conversation piece that she's a football star."

Now the rest of the staff are talking about heading down to the Keepmoat to see their football star in action for the Belles.



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