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and-out Mag, and supported Newcastle. But I only supported the ladies’ team, and I hid my scarf in the cupboard! I never left supporting Sunderland, but at the same time my daughter was playing for Newcastle. I went to watch, and I ended up shouting as loud as everybody else.
She has two older brothers who both played football, and from the age of five or six they were playing in the passage in house and there was always a ball on the go. She joined in, and from about six or seven, that was it, she was always playing with the ball. She went to school and joined the boys’ team, joined another boys’ team away from school and she never looked back. She’s been on so many teams since, and she’s still as happy and focused as she always has been.
In women’s football a lot of players are semi- professional. Does Claudia have any jobs or roles outside of playing for Sunderland?
She did, she was working for Amazon. But she was doing big shifts and, in the end, it crossed over with Sunderland’s training. So, she decided, after speaking to us, that one was going to have to go. She packed her job in to focus on her career as a footballer because she couldn’t do both, she was working too far away from home to get back for training. At the minute she’s involved with coaching the second team at Gateshead College.
It must have been a big decision to leave her job and go full time into football.
The financial difficulty was quite big, because she was getting a decent wage at Amazon but really couldn’t do both. It was a shame she couldn’t, and it’s a shame the money wasn’t there in football for her to set herself on that course, although she’s had help from her family. I agree with her, if she can’t do both, she’s got to stick with what she’s good at and what she loves. So, she went and concentrated on football.
Nowadays do you think it’s easier for girls to get involved with football?
When Claudia started out, she was always on boys’ teams, the only girl there. But now if you read about it or talk about it, at work or wherever, there’s a lot of people with daughters or granddaughters and they’ve all found teams. So ,the availability of teams is definitely out there now for young girls. So yes, I think it must be easier. If your daughter wants to play football, there is a team for her somewhere. You might have to travel a few extra miles, but they are available to young girls.
The final message from Keith is that football is a lot more accessible than it used to be. More girls are watching football than ever before, and that’s translating onto the pitch as well. If you’re into football, there’s bound to be a local team for you.
The Lasses play their home games at Eppleton CW, get yourself down to support Mel Reay’s team if you have a spare afternoon!
How did she get into football?
What’s your proudest moment of Claudia’s career so far?
This is nothing to do with Sunderland, or Newcastle. This is when she was a goalkeeper for Lumley Ladies, and they were playing in a tournament at Blackpool. She broke her thumb in the quarter finals and was in the St John Ambulance, she was devastated. She was crying “I can’t play, I can’t play”. She didn’t play in the semis and they got through to the final, and the coach put her on in the final to play in front of the goalkeeper as a defender. The ball didn’t get near the goalkeeper all game. Claudia played as a goalkeeper in the box but with her head and feet! Lo and behold, she ran out and scored the winning goal from her own half. They’d put her on because
she’s a big lass, to be strong in front of the goalkeeper. In the dying minutes of the game she just took off from her own box, went up past the halfway line, struck the ball lovely and scored the winning goal. That was the best part of her career up to now, for Lumley Ladies.
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BY DANIEL MCCALLUM