Calleigh Hedley: Balancing Motherhood and Football Ambitions

Calleigh Hedley stands at the centre of Guernsey FC’s ambitions again this season, but life now runs to a very different rhythm.

The club’s prolific forward is back leading the line after giving birth to her son, Luca. Last year, pregnancy ruled her out of half the campaign. This year, every training session and every match is a negotiation between motherhood and elite competition.

“I’m not looking forward to spending whole days away from him,” she admits.

The honesty is disarming, but it underlines the scale of the challenge. Fitness work, tactical meetings, travel days – all of it now has to fit around a baby boy who has instantly become the priority.

What hasn’t changed is her eye for goal.

Hedley played just eight times last season in the Southern Region Women’s Football League Division One South. She still scored 16 goals. Even with her campaign cut in half, she finished as the division’s sixth-highest scorer. Those numbers explain exactly why Guernsey FC are so eager to have her back at full tilt as they enter only their second season in the English league pyramid.

The early evidence suggests the instincts are intact. Last month, in Guernsey’s first-ever appearance in the Women’s FA Cup, Hedley needed just two minutes to find the net against Chessington & Hook United. She scored both of the Green Lionesses’ goals in a 3-2 defeat, reintroducing herself to competitive football with ruthless efficiency.

“I was shocked,” she said of that rapid opener. “I wasn’t sure I was even going to get a goal, let alone score in two minutes.”

The strike did more than light up the tie. It settled doubts. “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.”

Family, in truth, is the foundation of this comeback.

“My family are amazing, they’re always helping me with Luca,” she told BBC Radio Guernsey. When she needs to hit the gym, they step in. When a training block looms or a matchday demands her full focus, they offer to take Luca “for a bit” so she can do what she needs to do. For home games, for away games, the message is the same: “We’ll have him, don’t worry.” It is the sort of support system that keeps a playing career alive.

Guernsey will lean heavily on that network as the season opens. The Green Lionesses host Bognor Regis Town on Sunday in their first league fixture, before a draining run of three consecutive away games. For most squads at this level, away days mean a coach trip. For Guernsey, they mean early alarms, flights to England, and late returns – long, disjointed days that pull players away from families and routines.

For Hedley, that reality bites hardest.

“I don’t know if I’ll be able to commit to every single away game,” she concedes.

The words don’t come from a lack of desire to play, but from a mother weighing up hours spent in airports and on pitches against hours with her son. “But I will definitely be trying to do some, but it’ll be difficult having a day away from him.”

Guernsey know exactly what she offers when she is there: movement that unnerves defenders, a penalty-box presence that turns half-chances into goals, and a calmness in front of goal that numbers alone cannot fully capture. Sixteen goals in eight league appearances last season. Two more in their historic FA Cup debut. The sample is small, the impact enormous.

The club’s second year in the English system will test their depth, their resilience and their ability to turn promise into progress. For Hedley, it will test something else entirely: how far a mother can stretch herself between the demands of a growing child and the pull of a growing club.

On the island, they will hope the answer still includes plenty of goals in green.