FOOTBALL4GOOD MAGAZINE - DECEMBER 2019

goalkeeper, her answer takes her back to be- ing a teenager where she “somehow fell into” what she enjoys most. “I was 14 or 15. One day we were playing hockey at school. I had never played before and didn’t particularly have any interest in it but the goalkeeper got to wear all the padding. “So, I volunteered to go in goal. I loved wear- ing all the padding and just I really enjoyed it. Not really the hockey side of it, but more stop- ping shots and throwing myself around. From then on, at the next football training session I went in goal and that’s how it all started.” She had always been sporty as a child, seem- ingly with an inclination to test gravity’s limits, initially taking up gymnastics. But it wasn’t until she was 11 that she discovered football. “I was a bit jealous of my brothers going down to the park with my dad so eventually I tagged along.” “My family were always very supportive. They had the view that ‘whatever you want to do, you can do it’.” Where other parents might not have offered such support for a young girl so passionate about sport, she was also lucky because she wasn’t alone in another sense. “There were other girls playing around the same time,” she says, noting that many of her later teammates told her that, growing up, they had been, “the only girl playing football in their environment”. She played purely for the enjoyment, safe in her own assumption that, “there weren’t really oppor- tunities to be a professional footballer as a girl.” Instead, she played multiple sports and took her education seriously. Her layers of inter- ests clearly stem from not being trapped in the “bubble” which she sees the new genera- tion finding themselves in. “It took my coach telling me: ‘Listen, if you want to take football seriously, you need to stop everything else, you need to commit to it, to just playing football’.” In as much as she limited her pursuits in fa- vour of football, at that point the career path it offered still meant simultaneously keeping her options open. A scholarship at the National Football Development Centre, training full-time and “If you have 11 players on the pitch that were just ‘players’ and didn’t really have any depth to them – who just go out there and do their job – I wouldn’t really expect too much. Now, if you have several unique personalities, that are all working together, bouncing off one another, interacting and engaging in different ways, that is what adds to football.” Siobhan Chamberlain is a strong believer that there is more to life than football. The broader the personalities in the dressing room, she feels, the better the game. Her own football career could be considered off-piste. The breadth of her identity spans from Manchester United and England goal- keeper, to Common Goal member, up-and- coming photographer, mum-to-be, and a former university lecturer. “I think the personalities that people have and who they are makes them the players they are,” she says early on in a conversation where the ease with which she passes from topic to topic is striking. In July, her announcement that she was embarking on the adventure of becoming a parent, arrived alongside a statement that she intended to use the time to improve aspects of her game both on and off the pitch, remaining with the squad in a “slightly different capacity”. Since then, she has swapped leaping in the penalty area for further pursuits: trying her hand at taking over Manchester United’s social media, commentating for the club’s TV channel, and advancing her artistic venture as team photographer. Like all the best goalkeepers should, Siobhan seems to grasp opportunities with both hands. Embracing the unknown is fundamental to her character, which combines a sense of adven- turous ambition with applicative anticipation. Two traits which come in handy, both between the sticks and beyond. The way she has approached this current chapter of her life, as well as previously man- aging to combine her many endeavours while playing, should come of no surprise to any- body who knows how she made her entrance to international football’s grandest stage. In 2015, with a world cup semi-final at stake, and after years of waiting for an opportunity she thought might never come, the moment presented itself in sudden circumstanc- es. When then England goalkeeper, Karen Bardsley suffered an allergic reaction, it meant Siobhan would be coming on. However, instead of rushing into the frantic fray, throwing herself directly into the deep- est of footballing waters, among her own tide of adrenaline, she remained inexplicably cool. To the frustration of her Canadian opponents on the day, she calmly proceeded to carry on her warm-up, safe in the knowledge that everyone inside the packed 54,000 stadium would be waiting for her. After an assured performance, helping book England’s place in the next round, she revealed to the press: “I thought, ‘Well, they can’t start the game without me,’ so I took my time. If I’d started rushing or panicking I wouldn’t have been in a good place.” In fact, she had already completed her usual pre-playing protocol in the half-time break, as she always had when starting on the bench. “As a goalkeeper you’ve got to make sure you’re always properly prepared,” she said, “in our position you know anything can happen at any point in any game.” Not only was she able to hold her nerve when it mattered most, she even enjoyed it – not feeling nervous at all. The more she reveals about her journey, the harder it is to differentiate whether the position of goalkeeper was made for her or whether it was the other way around. When asked when and how she became a 62 63 FOOTBALL4GOODMAGAZINE | DECEMBER 2019 SIOBHANCHAMBERLAIN: ADIFFERENTPICTUREOF FOOTBALL