Hannah Hampton- One of Us.

“I stuck my hand up”

Life is all about opportunities and few sliding door moments can have more far reaching consequences when during a Stoke City Under 12’s game, an unfortunate injury to The Potteries starting keeper, led to an urgent request from the coach, and a calm response and self assurance, that time and again has been a hallmark of Hannah Hampton.

But what pressures would donning the gloves have on a pre teen, when by the age of three, you’d been through three operations on your eyes in an attempt to deal with a condition called Strabismus, defined as, ‘the deviation of one eye towards the nose, while the other remains focused’?

For Hannah it was just one step in a pattern of obstacles not being anything more than a challenge to overcome.

Although Hannah had previous experience of goalkeeping in pick up games in her home country from age 5 to 11, Spain, this was her first ever official match between the sticks.

80 Minutes later, unbeknown to all, an England scout was in the small group of spectators and came over post game and promptly offered Hannah a place in the National Under 12 squad, as a goalkeeper, not as a striker, the position that was previously her strength.

This outfield background goes a long way to explaining the origins of her rare comfort in possession, Hannah being so balanced, no perceived weakness on either foot with an excellent range of passing skills.

Indeed, Hannah was so talented as an outfield player, a month after being invited to attend England camp as goalkeeper, she also shone as a striker, to the degree of being offered a spot in this position in the National U 13 Squad as well.

Hannah’s journey for someone so young is a truly fascinating and unique tale of medical challenge, travel, adapting to change and gaining so much from the cultural experience.

Hannah was born in Birmingham in November 2000, and grew up in Studley, Warwickshire, being born with an eye affliction that needed to be rectified.

At just three years old, a trio of operations were conducted at Birmingham Children’s Hospital, procedures that take almost an hour to perform and ordinarily have an 8 to 12 week recovery time.

For Hannah, the surgery was only partially successful, but being the resilient person that she is, life carried on as normally as possible, but it was not easy for someone so young to deal with operations plus the stigma of her condition and patience in recovery.

For Hannah, her debt of gratitude to Birmingham Children’s Hospital knows no bounds, she is now a committed in an Ambassadorial Role with the BCH, and you can only imagine the pride and empathy of youngsters lying in bed, seeking hope and inspiration and seeing one of their own, recover and  perform with such a level of skill for England.

Payback cannot be sweeter or more apt.

When Hannah was five, her family moved to Spain, to the province of Castellon, bordered by the Mediterranean Sea on the NE coast of Spain, where Hannah reflects, ‘Spain was where I grew up’

It was a childhood, via two ambitious parents who wanted to show their children the world, both were employed as teachers at the local school, where Hannah reflects she’d play football in the playground, waiting for teaching duties to be over, to take her home.

Much of young Hannah’s spare time was spent at the local ‘Astro’, the artificial turf area most towns in a climate as oppressively hot as Spain have as a communal place and pick up football game arena.

High quality grass is always a very rare Spanish option for football.

The 'Astro' was pivotal to Hannah’s development, as her school didn’t have a football team, as siesta is such a part and parcel of life in the Iberian Peninsula, the afternoon priorities were beach and fun.

However, as seems the pattern in Hannah’s life, a chance situation changed everything, when Argentinian defender Fabien Fuentes, an ex player with  Villarreal spotted Hannah playing football at the local Astro, and invited her to train with the ‘Yellow Submarine’s’, also based in Castellon.

Hannah initially played at Villarreal as striker, and the Spanish adherence to technique honed coaching through repetitions at such a young age allied to Futsal focused sessions can clearly seen in the technical brilliance of the Spanish National team.

A by-product of this deeply impressive Spanish coaching methodology will be their opposing keeper in the 2025 Euro’s Final, and another legacy is Hannah is fully fluent in Spanish.

As a personal aside, my own daughter spent two weeks training with FC Malaga, and the attention to detail in coaching was eye opening.

One element of many La La Liga coaching complexes is an additional sanded football pitch where players compete without boots and core strength, technical skills and conditioning are tested highly in these exacting conditions.

It may have looked like pretty plain sailing, but the remarkable part of Hannah’s health background is the fact she will always have to deal with very poor depth perception in her sight.

Even now, over twenty years since Hannah’s operations, you can still only cosmetically improve the look of someone who suffers from strabismus. Depth perception STILL cannot be altered.

For Hannah and her parents, the warnings from doctors of not being able to compete in high level sport, with such a visual handicap, were made clearly and plainly.

But you are asking the wrong family and the wrong daughter to conform to that view.

 As Hannah confesses,

“I basically have zero depth perception, so I can’t judge distances”.

 Even the basic pouring of a drink is inherently problematic.

The key is, for Hannah and anyone else suffering from strabismus is to ‘hold a glass, then pour a drink’.

To freely pour is to invite the inevitable spilled liquid and embarrassment.

And with those same eyes that can’t judge depth perception, you are the custodian of the goals for the national team.

The last line of defence.

Remarkable what compensatory skills and personal sheer bloody mindedness can do for you in life?

In the early days, Hannah spoke of many nose bleeds from misjudging the flight and pace of the ball, but if it was a save, that’s all that mattered.

Getting your hands in the wrong positions led to many broken fingers for Hannah.

But never a broken spirit…

Hannah’s debut for England as a 12 yr old was v Netherlands, and a clean sheet in her 45 Minute between the sticks, was a sign of things to come.

Hannah spent her early teen years at Stoke, still crediting her coach at the Britannia Stadium as her biggest influence, the now Head of Recruitment with the Potteries, Andrew Frost, and also an influence and inspiration close to home, her elder brother Ben who made the Hampton family equally proud being capped by England for age group hockey.

Hannah is still immensely proud of her brother, who is now a serving member of the British Army.

Respect.

Hannah moved closer to her Studley home, joining Birmingham City from Stoke in 2016 making her debut in November 2017 as a 16 year old v Doncaster Belles, but it wasn’t until the following season that Hannah really established herself as first choice with the Blues.

After half a century of games for Blues and a regular for England at U17/20, Hannah moved across the city for two seasons with Aston Villa, before joining WSL powerhouses Chelsea in 2023.

Hannah was made aware of Chelsea’s interest, but failed to take the situation seriously until Emma Hayes called Hampton directly, much to Hannah’s complete amazement.

This amazement was predicated by how close Hannah came to completely quitting the game just a year before.

The crux of Hannah’s feelings of resignation can be seen from a perceived acrimony in the Autumn of 2022 when the Lionesses coach, Sarina Wiegman strongly suggested, “Hannah has some personal issues she has to solve, so for her, she has to stay at home”.

Social media and the public can be inordinately cruel, no more so than in this case, ‘the straw that broke the camel's back’ was Hannah being assailed with personal, vindictive abuse in a local street.

For Hannah, those offensive words meant just two words to her,

 “I’m done”.

Hannah immediately contacted Villa, requesting time off, and in her mindset, an ‘I wanted to quit’ mentality prevailed, such a depressingly, sad scenario for a player of just 22 years of age.

But the mind and spirit can change and from a feeling of “letting everyone down”, became the opposite emotion.

I love Hannah’s mindset here, and it really underlines her lifelong mantra,

“I’ve spent my life proving people wrong, why change now?”

And change Hannah did and simply put she’s never looked back.

An unprecedented treble winner with Chelsea, including a run of nine games without conceding a goal last season.

And of course, change meant convincing Sarina Wiegman, Hannah was not to be discarded but trusted.

The seemingly ‘set in stone’ keeper for England, national hero Mary Earps was passed over for the starters role, usurped by Hannah, the reaction, Earps surprisingly, promptly retired for The Lionesses, age being part of Mary’s rationale.

Wiegman’s bold decision has been completely vindicated, with Hampton’s cool demeanour between the sticks and next level football skills.

With a keeper like Hampton, you get an 11 aside overload option, a Futsal vision of football, always the extra player in possession, let alone the penalty heroics, bloodied nose be damned v Sweden in the last eight.

Of course this was just the prelude to Hannah’s stunning performance in the Semi Final v Italy and her incredible penalty saving heroics to win the Euros against Spain.

There is SO much to admire about the Hannah Hampton story, not least, she is a devoted Baggie.

In other words, ONE OF US.

No less reliable figure than ‘Kitman Pat’, devoted Baggies supporter aka, Pat Frost, confirmed this week, Hannah will be attending a game at The Hawthorns next month.

Whether it’s Blackburn, Derby or Portsmouth being the visitors, I trust the Albion faithful will give one of their own, the rapturous ovation she will truly deserve, when she returns to her Hawthorns home as a fan.

Her story as well as her character are truly rare and remarkable.

As Hannah states, “It was always my passion to play sport. It was my dream”

The Hampton legacy is, regardless of obstacles, if you have character, drive and never to be beaten self belief, anything is possible.

Now, winning The Euros and beyond.

Dreams CAN come true.