'It’d be unreal' - Leeds United Women skipper Catherine Hamill on her life in football and getting the Whites to the WSL

This season, I’m excited to be writing a column every Tuesday for the Yorkshire Evening Post. I’ll be telling you all about my experience as captain of Leeds United Women - I’m looking forward to sharing it with you. But first, a little bit about me.

I started playing football when I was nine years old. I had been doing gymnastics, but I was getting a bit fed up with that when my friend from school suggested I join her at Wortley Girls. I thought, ‘why not?’

My Dad and my brothers have always loved football. They took me to my first Elland Road game when I was nine - a 2-0 win over Southend. They’ve still got season tickets in the East Stand. So I’m sure that was part of it - I wanted to copy my brothers.

I spent two years at Wortley Girls and then I was asked to go to Yorkshire Amateurs (it was Old Modernians at the time). After my second season with Amateurs, I got spotted at a holiday camp in Beeston by the director of the Leeds United girls academy. I went to trials, and it turned out we were a good fit for eachother - I played my first season in white aged 13, and I’ve been there ever since!

I’ve just started my 12th season with Leeds United Women and this time I’m taking on the captain’s armband. We play in Division One North, which is in the fourth tier of the women’s pyramid. Every week we train for two hours on Tuesdays and Thursdays. All the players are either working full-time or studying, so we do a lot of our own preparation outside of training. After a game, I’ll do a recovery run the next day, then go to the gym at least two or three times a week. We play our home games at Tadcaster Albion, and there’s a league match every Sunday - except this week we’ll take on Barnsley on Thursday night, too.

This weekend, we won 1-0 against Alnwick Town. We deserved the win - it was more comfortable than it looks on the scoreline. It was a long day - we left at 9am, kicked off at two, then we weren’t back in Leeds until past seven. I’m glad we won. It would have been a very long and sad coach back from Northumberland otherwise!

When I’m not training or playing, I study for my degree in Sport and Exercise Science. I started university quite late, as I spent some time working in insurance after I left college. After I finished an apprenticeship, I realised that it wasn’t for me - what I really wanted to do was work in football or sport.

I’d love to work in performance analysis. A lot of research has gone into the way someone’s DNA can influence what kind of athlete they are, and you can use genetic information to tailor their training programme. I think that’s really interesting. It’s a route I’d like to go down in the future but, for now, it’s just a case of getting my foot in the door.

I work part-time as a coach for the Leeds United Foundation. I’ve spent this summer in Knaresborough, Wakefield, all across Yorkshire, helping to run football camps for kids. For the rest of the year, I do regular evening sessions with the Wildcats, which is great fun, teaching the youngsters the key skills and rules of the game, and then I also work with the shadow squad at the Regional Talent Centre.

I’m excited for the Women’s Super League to start. Loads more games are going to be broadcast than in previous seasons, starting with the first game on Friday. We’ve never had such easy access to WSL matches before, so I’m really looking forward to watching a few - it’ll be good to see what kind of standard they play in the top flight.

It’d be unreal if Leeds got to the WSL. What a dream. It will happen one day - we’re working on it.

Support the YEP and become a subscriber today. Enjoy unlimited access to local news and the latest on Leeds United. With a digital subscription, you see fewer ads, enjoy faster load times, and get access to exclusive newsletters and content. Click HERE to subscribe.