The Blues' shot-stopper has been in scintillating form this campaign, and is only going to get better
There was plenty of fallout from Chelsea's statement 3-1 win over Arsenal in the Women's Super League on Friday night. But amid the socks, Lauren James and attendance discussion, Emma Hayes made sure to single out her goalkeeper for special praise.
"I say this as the future USA coach: England are so lucky… I genuinely believe [she] has all the ability to become the best in the world," Hayes said.
The soon-to-be USWNT boss was, of course, referring to Hannah Hampton. If not for an unlucky deflection off of Catarina Macario, the Chelsea shot-stopper would have earned her fifth WSL clean sheet of the season against the Gunners. It's an impressive tally, considering she has only made seven league appearances since arriving from Aston Villa in the summer.
The chances of Hampton breaking into the first team at all seemed remote during the early part of her Chelsea career. Now, though, there's little doubt that she is Hayes' No.1 goalkeeper. Overcoming this adversity is typical of Hampton's career so far, with the Englishwoman enjoying a particularly unconventional route to the very top of the women's game.
Not your typical footballing education
Hampton's family relocated to Villareal in eastern Spain when she was five. This is where she honed her passion for football, with the 23-year-old opening up on this part of her life during an interview posted on Chelsea's website last year.
"In Spain, it was quite normal for boys and girls to play football on the playground," she said. "The school that I went to was the main one in Villarreal so all the men’s players sent their kids there. They would come and pick their kids up at the end of the day and one of the players saw me. They said I should trial for the club, and so I went to trial and that was it."
Her family returned to England at 11, but Hampton's footballing enthusiasm persisted. However, ending up in goal was far from a foregone conclusion.
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"I was right-wing, striker and number 10! Anywhere that involved running because I loved it," she recalled in the same interview. "My first game in goal came aged 12, but I went in goal properly at 14. When I was at Stoke, the goalkeeper got injured so I volunteered to go in goal. The one game I played, an England scout came, so I got scouted for England.
"A week later, I was outfield and they scouted me outfield so I had to pick! I went to my first England camp when I was 12, playing in goal for a bit and then outfield for a bit. At my club, I would play outfield and for England I’d play in goal. When I was 14, I went full goalkeeper."
AdvertisementGetty ImagesOvercoming adversity
This is not the only interesting aspect of Hampton's early development either. Remarkably, she was diagnosed with a strabismus, an eye condition that affects depth perception as a child. Despite undergoing several operations to correct the issue, the ailment left her with limited depth perception.
"Yeah, I can't judge any distances," she told in 2021. "I don't get how I'm a goalkeeper, I don't understand! Everyone's been asking me that! I don't get how it works, but you can tell because I try and pour a glass of water and I will miss the glass completely, unless I'm holding the glass myself. I have done it around the training ground a few times and a few of the girls have just laughed at me."
Getty ImagesEstablishing herself
This issue did not prevent Hampton from cementing her status as one of the WSL's most-promising goalkeepers when she was afforded first-team opportunities at Birmingham City. Her chance came following the departure of Ann-Katrin Berger to Chelsea in January 2019, with Hampton scarcely relinquishing the gloves in the years that followed.
She was kept busy, too. The Blues' WSL fortunes declined sharply following scything budget cuts, with Ellen White, Aoife Mannion and Hayley Ladd all departing in summer 2019. Amid this chaos, Hampton's prodigious reputation endured and Aston Villa snapped her up following Birmingham's second successive 11th-placed finish at the end of the 2020-21 season.
Her first campaign at Villa saw her come on leaps and bounds, with only Brighton's Megan Walsh and West Ham's Mackenzie Arnold making more saves in the WSL that campaign. Her form also led to her being rewarded with a maiden, senior England cap at the 2022 Arnold Clark Cup.
"I don’t think I took a smile off my face from the minute I got told until now really, and I don’t think it will be coming off my face for a long time," Hampton reflected after reaching that major milestone.
Getty ImagesBumps in the road
Heading into last season, it felt like the only way was up for Hampton and Villa. The club had turned heads with a highly impressive transfer window, bringing in the likes of Rachel Daly, Kenza Dali and Kirstie Hanson, while the goalkeeper was riding high as part of England's Euro 2022-winning squad.
Things started extremely promisingly too, with the free-scoring Daly firing the Villans up the table. Hampton, however, was conspicuously absent from the starting line-up after keeping a clean sheet in her side's 2-0 victory over Leicester in September.
Eventually, Villa boss Carla Ward provided an update following a defeat to Chelsea in October where Hampton was excluded from the squad entirely. "Hannah was available. Something happened yesterday and we decided it was in the best interests of the team and the squad for her to stay at home, so I did exactly that," she said.
Oddly, though, Hampton was spotted in the stands at Kingsmeadow cheering on her team-mates. Things were further complicated when she was omitted from the England squad for games against Japan and Norway in early November, having previously missed out on the September squad too.
