Norfolk-Born Lauren Hemp Playing For Her Sister As She Returns To Norwich

At 21 years of age, Lauren Hemp heads into her first major tournament with England women’s soccer team with the world at her feet. The dynamic left winger is feted to be one of the stars of the game but on Sunday, she will play at Carrow Road in Norwich, the stadium she grew up watching the game in.

As part of the newly-formed Arnold Clark Cup, a four-team tournament also involving Olympic champions Canada and Germany, England will play Spain at Carrow Road, the home stadium of men’s Premier League side Norwich City. The ground provided the young Hemp with her first live experience of top-level soccer, a game she initially showed little interest in.

“To be honest, it was my dad and my sister who used to have a season ticket”, she tells me. “They used to go every week and watch Norwich City. I always used to stay at home with my mum. That was at a time I wasn’t really that interested in football but I think it was soon as my sister started playing, I wanted to be just like her so I joined in with her. We always had it on the radio if we weren’t there watching the game, we were big supporters. I’ve always tried to go whenever I could.”

Like many female players, Hemp’s first role models in the game were male. “I definitely looked up to Wes Hoolahan, and James Maddison, who I used to love as well before he left. There’s some fantastic players who’ve come through Norwich. I’ve always supported them. It’s great to get to the games whenever I can. I grew up going to Carrow Road. That inspired me to then want to be like them when I was older.”

It was older sister Amy who initiated the Hemps interest in the game but emulating her was not always a preoccupation for the young Lauren who danced on the sidelines when her parents went to watch Amy play for the local team. “I was just there doing my own thing while my mum and my dad were watching my sister. It wasn’t until I was playing in the back yard, in the garden of my nan and grandad’s house they said ‘why don’t you give it a go?’. Dad took me along to my local grassroots team and a trial out there. The rest is history I guess.”

While Lauren went to realize her parent’s dreams of representing their country at senior international level, Amy’s career was derailed by two cruciate ligament injuries which forced her to quit the game. “I think she was more of a goalscorer than I’ll ever be” admits the younger Hemp. “She was an out-and-out striker. She was a great player. Unfortunately, she got injured and could not continue playing so a part of me is also doing it for her because I know she would have loved to continue playing. She went to a couple of England camps as well and done that before I then started to go to camps. I’ve got her full support behind me and she’s always coming to the games whenever she can and supporting me from home. It’s great to have a family around me who support me.”

The predominantly rural English county of Norfolk is the fifth largest in the country, but it is not renowned for producing talented soccer players. The Norwich-born Danny Mills, an ever-present for England at the 2002 men’s World Cup, is one of the few from Norfolk to represent his country. Born in August 2000, Hemp is from the small market town of North Walsham, famous for its motorcycle museum and the young soccer player who in 2020 was voted into the IFFHS u20 women’s world team of the year and nominated by European governing body UEFA as one of the ten most promising female soccer players on the continent.

Pursuing a professional career has forced Hemp to live away from Norfolk for over five years, but she nevertheless retains an affection for her home town. “There market is really nice. Every Thursday, they have a market store and I used to go with my nan. To be honest, it’s a great little town. Obviously, I grew up there, I went to primary and secondary school there as well. I love it. I always walk into town with my mum whenever I’m at home. It’s great just thinking about it.”

Growing up away from the traditional heartlands of English soccer, the young Hemp could not contemplate a professional future in the game. “To be honest, growing up, I never really thought of football as a career, I always thought of it as a hobby. It wasn’t until I was older that I thought, this is actually possible. I had to move home for me to do that.”

Barely 16, she left the Norwich City Academy to join Women’s Super League 2 side Bristol City. “I moved to Bristol and went to college there. They had a great college academy set-up. We had so much talent in Norwich but there just wasn’t an elite female football club that I could go to. I needed to move away from home to do that. They gave me a fantastic start in my football career. Obviously having that center of excellence and being able to train with the boys as well, the elite boys at Norwich. That was great for me, it’s definitely helped me in my journey to become a professional athlete.”

On the opposite side of the country, Hemp could not have moved much further away from Norfolk within England, she admits to feeling homesick. “I remember when I used to play for Norwich when I was younger and we’d go away on tours and travel the country, I used to get really upset that I was away from home and my family. It wasn’t until that I actually moved to Bristol that it was real. I think it’s helped a lot with my independence. It’s definitely come on leaps and bounds because you don’t normally see 16-year-olds moving away from home. So for me, it was a massive thing at such a young age. It’s all part of my journey and it’s helped me become the player and the person that I am today. It was always difficult going home, it was a five-hour drive at best to get back and see my family. They were the sort of sacrifices that I made to be where I am today.”

Within two years, Hemp had been voted the Professional Footballers’ Association Young Player of the Year and secured a move to Manchester City. This weekend she will return home to Norfolk lauded as a local hero with plenty of familiar faces in the crowd. “I think I’ve got one of the stands filled to be honest with all my friends and family!” she tells me. “I’m just trying to get as many tickets as I can. A lot of them are back home messaging me saying they are going to be there supporting me. It’s great to have a lot of my old school friends, my mum’s friends, my sister’s friends, obviously all my family. Yeah, I’ve just got a load of people coming so I can’t wait to get back to Carrow Road on Sunday and show Norfolk the amount of quality there is in women’s football.”

As Carrow Road has not staged a senior women’s international fixture since 2006, Hemp acknowledges that it will also the first time that many of her team-mates will have visited the area. “It’s not often that people come to Norwich. It will be great to show them the area because it is a fantastic city. I loved growing up there. I wouldn’t change it for the world, I always love coming back home so it will be a great experience for everyone. I think I’ll definitely be the tour guide!”

After making her senior international debut in 2019 shortly after the last Women’s World Cup, the UEFA Women’s Euro in England this summer will be Hemp’s first chance to play for England at a major championship. However, her first experience of a senior tournament came last year when she represented Great Britain at the Tokyo Olympics. The team were eliminated at the quarter-final stage by Australia but Hemp ended the competition as the most fouled played in the tournament, on the receiving end of thirteen illegal challenges in three matches.

She concedes that is something a creative player like herself has to deal with. “Obviously, I love taking people one and sometimes that results in me being fouled. I take it in my stride. I love running at players because that’s one of my strengths. I enjoy every part of the game and I don’t mind getting a bit dirty on the ground as well every now and again. I love playing football and if that’s what happens sometimes, that’s what happens.”

England’s opponents Spain go into the Arnold Clark Cup on the back of 16 straight wins, a run which began with victory over the Lionesses in the She Believes Cup in March 2020. Hemp did not play in that game but did come up against the core of the Spanish team when FC Barcelona eliminated Manchester City from last season’s Women’s Champions League.

She is full of admiration for the way they play. “I think they’re definitely the best possession-based team I’ve seen. It will be a great experience for me and the rest of the group. These are the sorts of games you want to be playing in. We’re going to go there and obviously try our best and make sure that we try and win. We want to be in the best position we can going into the Euros, this is the start of that. Obviously, Spain are a top team, what they’ll bring is a lot of possession-based football, a lot of attacking threats but hopefully we’ll be able to match that and get one step ahead of them.”