Calleigh Hedley: Balancing Goals and Motherhood
Calleigh Hedley is used to defenders hanging off her shoulder. Leaving her baby son at home is a very different kind of pressure.
Guernsey FC’s prolific striker is back leading the line after giving birth to Luca, returning to the squad having missed half of last season through pregnancy. The goals have never really been in doubt. The juggling act is the real test now.
“I’m not looking forward to spending whole days away from him,” she admitted to BBC Radio Guernsey, a simple sentence that cuts through the usual pre-season chatter.
Goals, then motherhood, then goals again
Hedley’s numbers before and during her break were ruthless. She played only eight times last season yet still hit 16 goals, finishing as the sixth-highest scorer in the Southern Region Women’s Football League Division One South. When she was on the pitch, she was lethal.
Now she is trying to rediscover that sharpness while navigating night feeds, nappies and nursery plans.
“My family are amazing, they’re always helping me with Luca,” she said. “If I need to go to the gym or anything, they’re always offering ‘we’ll have him for a bit so you can go do what you need to do’.
“For the away games, for the home games, they say ‘we’ll have him, don’t worry’, so it’s been a massive help.”
That support system matters for any semi-professional player. For a new mother flying off the island at dawn for league fixtures and returning late the same night, it’s the difference between playing and staying home.
A flying restart in the FA Cup
If Guernsey FC were wondering how quickly their top scorer would click back into gear, the Women’s FA Cup answered that inside two minutes.
In the club’s first-ever match in the competition last month, Hedley scored twice in a 3-2 home defeat to Chessington & Hook United. Her first goal arrived almost before the crowd had settled.
“I was shocked,” she said. “I wasn’t sure I was even going to get a goal, let alone score in two minutes.
“It definitely helped me feel a bit better coming back into it, and I obviously had my family there watching and Luca was there, so it was really nice.”
The result stung, but the performance from their returning forward offered exactly the reassurance Guernsey needed as they head into only their second season in the English league pyramid. The Green Lionesses know that if Hedley is on the pitch, chances tend to end with the net rippling.
Early flights, late returns, tough choices
Now comes the grind.
Guernsey open their league campaign at home to Bognor Regis Town on Sunday. After that, the schedule turns unforgiving: three consecutive away games, each one demanding early alarms, airport queues and a full day on the move.
Those are long days for any player. For Hedley, they are long days away from Luca.
“I don’t know if I’ll be able to commit to every single away game,” she said. “But I will definitely be trying to do some, but it’ll be difficult having a day away from him.”
So Guernsey’s season will unfold with a delicate balance at its heart. A club chasing progress in the English pyramid. A striker chasing fitness and more goals. And a mother weighing every flight, every fixture, against time with her son.
The next chapter of the Green Lionesses’ story may depend on how often she decides to board that plane.
