As the former England youth international Flo Allen recalls the near-impossible task of trying to keep pace with a young Lauren Hemp in training, the look in her eyes momentarily resembles half shudder, half admiration. It’s a sentiment right-backs up and down the land have felt, but Allen, who grew up playing alongside her in Norwich’s centre of excellence then at Bristol City in the Women’s Super League, knows the feeling better than anyone.
“Yes, I had the very nice privilege of marking her throughout my whole childhood,” a chuckling Allen says. “The pace she had at under-10s was frightening, let alone later, and her left foot, at that age – wow.”
Allen is Norwich women’s general manager and – like everybody at the club – has been counting the days until the Euro 2025 qualifier at Carrow Road on Friday, when the 23-year-old Manchester City winger will return home as England face the Republic of Ireland.
Allen has known Hemp since the Euro 2022 winner was eight and fondly remembers the Lioness’s early years. “Lauren had such an unorthodox way of playing that we’d never seen before: someone who was just so direct, so powerful and dynamic,” she says.
“When we were about 13, we had a corner routine designed specifically around Lauren, because we knew nobody could get close to her. We thought it was quite clever: somebody would touch the ball and just roll it to classify as having taken it, and then Lauren would run over as if she was going to ‘take’ the corner but she’d dribble straight into the box, and nine times out of 10 she just banged the ball in. We were quite proud of that trick but, without Lauren, we couldn’t possibly do it.”
Allen and Hemp signed for Bristol City in 2016 as teenagers and Allen says senior players were quickly in awe of Hemp: “In training she would pick up the ball on the halfway line and dribble around everyone. It was almost like the ball was on a piece of string on the end of her left foot.
“We used to wind her up, saying: ‘Oh, you’ve only got a left foot.’ And then all of a sudden she was spending extra time after training working on her right foot. Lo and behold, very soon afterwards, away against Arsenal she curled in from outside the box with her right.”
For Hemp, from North Walsham in rural Norfolk, half an hour north of Norwich, moving to Bristol City to pursue her career was brave but by that stage the England technical staff had long been monitoring her development. For the Football Association’s women’s technical director, Kay Cossington, who worked as a national coach with the England girls’ youth teams from 2005 to 2016 and selected Hemp for the Under-15s almost a decade ago, being made aware of such a prospect was unforgettable.
“Ian Thornton, who was the technical director at Norwich’s girls’ centre of excellence, contacted me numerous times saying: ‘Kay, we have a player here that’s really good – she needs to be seen.’ I remember vividly going along and watching her play and, very quickly, she was standing out,” Cossington says.
“We’ve seen many, many talented players that haven’t made it – but Lauren loved the game. It never looked like she absorbed any pressure, she just enjoyed playing. She was an incredibly shy and quiet young girl back then but as soon as she stepped over that white line, she was a different person.
“Lauren and many others kind of had no choice at that time – they had to move. That was a fantastic and brave move for Lauren to go to Bristol. We had no professional women’s teams in the [east] region but Ian was able to help structure support and we collectively came together to truly put the player at the centre and give her the best opportunity. Ian and his colleagues genuinely cared.”
That is why when Thornton and his wife, Jackie, who was also working at Norwich’s girls’ centre of excellence when Hemp had her first trial, were at Wembley in 2022 watching Hemp score against the US in front of more than 76,000 people, they were overcome with emotion.
“We thought: ‘Blimey, this is huge. We’ve done all right with this one!’ And then she scored and we were crying,” Thornton says. “Lauren and her sister were both in the programme at Norwich. Lauren was small, fast and tenacious, but her biggest asset was she was very coachable. She’d listen very well to all the coaches. Off the pitch, she was polite, she was respectful and she was a team player, always on time and always listening – everything you’d want a young player to be. On the pitch, she was tenacious, aggressive and wanted to score goals.”
It was at under-15s level when Thornton and his coaching team decided it would be best for Hemp’s development for her to play in the boys’ programme: “We wanted her to have more demands, to challenge her. We needed the game to be a little bit faster and more physical for her, because she wasn’t being challenged, it was almost too comfortable for her. She enjoyed the boys’ programme and coped with it unbelievably well.”
Thornton also beams with pride as he recalls seeing other former centre of excellence players going on to work as “doctors, PE teachers, or police officers” but says there is something extra special about seeing a player win a Euros, something Hemp will hope to help England do again in 12 months.
Allen is hoping a bustling crowd at Carrow Road – where Norwich’s women’s team play twice a season – will be inspired to engage in the women’s game. The club are proud of their track record of developing professional women’s players, not just Hemp and Allen, but others including Leicester City’s former Manchester United midfielder Aimee Palmer and the former WSL title-winning goalkeeper Sarah Quantrill, who is back at the club.
Their latest crop of seniors finished second in the south-east region of the fourth tier last season, stepping up to train two nights a week for the past two campaigns. “This season over 60% of our first-team players will have progressed through our pathway,” Allen says. “Ultimately we hope that eventually players like Lauren will stay at our club and play in our first team.
“We know we’ve got a little bit of work to do on our side to get a position where top-class talent like Lauren can stay. If we can retain our homegrown talent, that’s our long-term strategy. We want to make our mark on the women’s game.”
