Matt Maher: Happiest birthday as England come calling for Ebony Salmon

Instead, she told him she had been selected for the England squad.

“I was on the A449, a couple of miles from home and I pulled into a layby to take the call,” explains Owen.

“I noticed my wife and son were on the call too and my immediate thought was: ‘This is nice, they are going to sing Happy Birthday!’

“That’s when Ebony broke the news. I remember punching the air, then I cried. I just wasn’t expecting it.”

It isn’t that Owen had never envisioned a moment his daughter would receive an international call-up. After all, Ebony has already represented England numerous times at youth level, captaining the under-17s to fourth place at the Women’s Under-17s Championship in 2018.

Her goalscoring exploits for Bristol City this season have, meanwhile, firmly established her credentials as one of the country’s most exciting young players.

“Let’s not muck about here, Ebony is going to go to the very top,” Bristol’s interim boss, Matt Beard, recently remarked.

But having only turned 20 last month, the speed of her progress has still been a surprise.

“At first I thought she was telling us she’d been called up by the under-21s,” says Owen. “But then I thought, hang on, there are no under-21 matches at the minute.

“Ebony’s long-term goal has always been to represent her country. To get her first senior call-up now, at such a young age, it is unreal.”

Today, Ebony will take the next step in her burgeoning career when she meets up with the rest of the Lionesses squad at St George’s Park, ahead of next Tuesday’s friendly against Northern Ireland.

Her path to this point has not always been smooth. At times it has been unorthodox. Having got her first taste of football playing against her older brothers, Leon and Levi, in the back garden of their Kingswinford family home, Ebony’s early years were spent playing alongside boys at Gornal Colts in the Stourbridge & District Youth League. It was very much a family affair, with dad Owen as coach, while mum Sarah is club secretary.

“When Ebony was six, about to turn seven, we advertised for girls to come and make up a team but we couldn’t get any,” explains Owen, a former non-league player with clubs including Willenhall Town and Oldbury United, who took up coaching with the Colts nearly two decades ago.

“In the end I just decided to run a boys team and just include Ebony in that.

“Back then it was unusual. I think it was about five years before we played another team with a girl in it.

“You would hear one or two giggles, maybe a parent exclaiming: ‘It’s a girl!’ But that all stopped once they saw what she could do.

“Because she was quick, I put her up front and just told her to go and enjoy it. I remember she went on one run and I just thought ‘Wow!’.”

Ebony remained with the Colts until the age of 14, when she joined Villa. After setting new records in the women’s academy, she then earned what looked like a dream move to Manchester United in 2018.

Yet it didn’t work out, with injury hampering her progress. Despite netting seven goals in eight matches during a loan spell with Sheffield United, Ebony was released from Old Trafford after just one year.

While other young players might have crumbled, she regrouped, accepting an offer to join Bristol City and finished top scorer last season, helping the club avoid relegation from the WSL. This year she has kicked on again, netting half of the club’s league goals so far and five in the last seven matches in all competitions.

“We are all huge Manchester United fans,” says Owen. “When she went there it was brilliant and when she was released we all felt the pain.

“The way she has built herself back up, going to Bristol and achieving what she has done there to now getting the England call-up, is what makes it so special.”

It does Ebony a disservice to say her game is based solely around pace, yet her speed is the attribute which immediately jumps out and the one most troubling to defenders.

A junior sprinter with Birchfield Harriers, she was faced with a choice of whether to continue with athletics or football.

“The pace runs through the family,” says Owen. “I was a sprinter. Sarah was a sprinter. Both of our boys are quick too.

“We still have arguments in the house now over who is the quickest and I keep saying it is me! Ebony really enjoyed athletics but the meets always clashed with football. In the end she had to make a decision between one and the other. It looks like she made a good one.”

If there is one sad aspect to this story, it is that like many other families right now, the Salmon’s are having to watch Ebony’s progress from afar.

But they remain in constant contact, always on hand to offer words of advice, encouragement or criticism. Ebony might have the world at her feet, yet her family will ensure they remain planted firmly on the floor.

“We are her biggest critics, there is no question about that,” laughs Owen. “Whenever Ebony comes home she generally gets a barrage of abuse!

“Her brothers can be pretty abrupt but she knows we are just trying to keep her grounded. We are so proud of what she has done.”