Na­tion­al women's mid­field­er Asha James be­gan her pro­fes­sion­al stint in the Kaza­khstan Foot­ball League, scor­ing on de­but in her Wfc Bi­ik Shymkent team’s 9-0 vic­to­ry over Kyzyzhr on April 14.

James found the back of the net in the 26th minute of her side’s first match in Round Two League ac­tion. The 2022 T&T Foot­ball As­so­ci­a­tion (TTFA) fe­male “Play­er of the Year” fea­tured in her squad’s line-up in an­oth­er 9-0 win over As­tana on April 21. She al­so took to the field in the 12-0 drub­bing of Uy­tu on May 5 and an­oth­er 9-0 maul­ing of Ye­li­may Se­mey one week lat­er.

She was on the side­lines when Shymkent drew 2-2 with Ak­tobe on April 28.

Shymkent sits atop the 14-team stand­ings with four wins and one draw in a keen bat­tle, as the top three teams are all on 13 points. Tomiris Tu­ran and Ak­tobe are al­so lev­el on the same points. How­ev­er, James and her team­mates are ahead on goal dif­fer­ence (39/36/34).

The lead­ing trio are one point above fourth and fifth place out­fits Kairat and Kyzyzhar, both on 12 points.

James will be look­ing to get her sec­ond goal in her team’s up­com­ing en­counter against Okzhet­pes on May 19.

The 2017 Com­mon­wealth Youth Games beach foot­ball gold medal­list is rel­ish­ing the op­por­tu­ni­ty to play for the 18-time Kazak League cham­pi­ons, Shymkent.

She said, “The ex­pe­ri­ence has been good so far, en­joy­ing the league and play­ing with my new team. (I am) very hum­bled and grate­ful to be able to once again go abroad and ply my skill as a pro­fes­sion­al.”

James, who made her pro de­but in Por­tu­gal in 2023 play­ing for Val­adares Ga­ia, has her sights set on con­tribut­ing to her team’s suc­cess. “My goal is to fin­ish the league healthy, lift tro­phies for the team and com­pete in the (Eu­ro­pean Women Cham­pi­ons) League.”

Speak­ing to Guardian Me­dia Sports, the for­mer Sig­nal Hill Sec­ondary stand­out play­er has been slow­ly ad­just­ing to life in the Cen­tral Asian coun­try.

“I have not re­al­ly took time to trav­el around, but from the ar­eas I have been to, it is nice. Cool cul­ture, in my opin­ion. The food is not a big shock in com­par­i­son to what we eat back home. Here they speak Kaza­kh, their lo­cal lan­guage, and Russ­ian, so al­ways hav­ing Google Trans­late helps with com­mu­ni­cat­ing.”

The 25-year-old, how­ev­er, had time to shop.

“I love how cheap every­thing is, food, clothes.”

James is not the on­ly T&T play­er in the Shymkent squad. She joined Maria Frances Ser­rant and is elat­ed to have a coun­try­woman close by.

“Of course, I am ec­sta­t­ic she is here. It makes be­ing so far away from home seem not far at all, hav­ing some­one who un­der­stands you and you are able to re­late with.”

The Canaan-To­ba­go na­tive has been a sta­ple on the na­tion­al women’s foot­ball team con­tin­gent. She last donned the na­tion­al uni­form in 2023 and is ready to wear the na­tion­al colours again.

“It is al­ways a plea­sure to rep­re­sent my coun­try, I am def­i­nite­ly look­ing for­ward to a re­turn if called to rep­re­sent.”

James has al­so made her mark in the sport of track and field. She rep­re­sent­ed T&T in javelin, where she won three medals at the Carif­ta Games (sil­ver Girls’ U-18/2015, bronze Girls’ U-18/2016, bronze Girls’ U-20/2017). The Zenith Ath­let­ic Club mem­ber com­pet­ed in both foot­ball and javelin as a stu­dent at Flori­da In­ter­na­tion­al and West Texas A&M Uni­ver­si­ties in the USA. Though foot­ball is a pri­or­i­ty at the mo­ment, she hopes to com­pete in the javelin event in the fu­ture. “I have ac­tu­al­ly been plan­ning on mak­ing a re­turn to javelin. Hope­ful­ly get­ting back to that field soon, cur­rent­ly just fo­cused on foot­ball.”

James holds a Bach­e­lor of Arts de­gree in Psy­chol­o­gy and cred­its time man­age­ment for bal­anc­ing sport with aca­d­e­mics.

“Be­cause I have been do­ing sports & school for such a long time, it be­came nat­ur­al to even bal­ance it at such a high­er lev­el of ed­u­ca­tion.”

She al­so ac­knowl­edges the role her pri­ma­ry (Bon Ac­cord Gov­ern­ment) and sec­ondary schools (Sig­nal Hill). “Both schools played an in­stru­men­tal part in my suc­cess as a stu­dent and an ath­lete. As at both schools, they pushed me in ath­let­ics and sup­port­ed me in my aca­d­e­mics as well.”

James hails from the same town (Canaan) as for­mer na­tion­al foot­baller and cur­rent coach Dwight Yorke.

“Be­ing trained by coach Bertile St Clair, he would al­ways speak about Dwight Yorke and be­ing a foot­baller from my vil­lage, I ad­mired him,” said James, who al­so high­light­ed for­mer na­tion­al women’s cap­tain Maylee John­son as an in­spi­ra­tion.

Giv­en her ac­com­plish­ments, James is hop­ing to in­spire oth­ers.

“I want my achieve­ments to show foot­ballers in T&T that the tal­ents God blessed you with once used for his glo­ry will take you very far in life. Al­so, peo­ple like my­self, com­ing from hum­ble be­gin­nings that they too can be suc­cess­ful at what­ev­er they set their minds on with hard work.”