Newcastle United supporter Lucy Staniforth has revealed that she used to wear an undershirt when she first played for Sunderland Women to stop the Black Cats' top touching her skin.
Staniforth remains a huge Newcastle fan to this day after her family relocated from York to Alnwick when the future England international was a youngster. As fate would have it, the Staniforths lived around the corner from Lucy Bronze's family, who advised her to join Blyth Town.
The two Lucys went on to tour America together with Blyth Town before joining Sunderland and the pair made their debuts for the Black Cats women's side at just 16. Given Sunderland's set-up, and the fact the women's team were in a higher division than Newcastle, it was a no-brainer.
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However, to this day, playing at St James' Park is on Staniforth's bucket list and the 30-year-old's dream is to work for Newcastle and help make the Lady Magpies a 'successful WSL club' after she recently completed a master's degree in football directorship. With that in mind, was it hard for Staniforth to cross the divide in the first place all those years ago?
“I’m a Newcastle fan so that was really difficult," the Aston Villa Women midfielder told the Guardian. "But Lucy was playing there and a lot of what I did when I was younger was just copy Lucy Bronze.
"At first, I used to wear a Brazil shirt under my Sunderland top to make sure I didn’t have it next to my skin.”
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