Leeds United Women: Bridie Hannon

Leeds United Women: Bridie Hannon

Captain on season so far.

Leeds United Women’s captain Bridie Hannon has given her thoughts on how the season has gone so far for the side, as well as what everyone has been up to during lockdown.

The Whites have won two, drawn two and lost two of their six matches so far. The skipper feels performances have been there and improvements were showing, prior to the season suspension.

“I think performance wise on the pitch it’s been ok,” she explained. 

“We have seen various improvements. We’ve had a couple of losses where we feel we could have got more out of the games, but on the flip side we’ve had some really good results against some of the top teams as well.  

“Off the pitch has been quite up and down really. As I’m sure most know at the moment, we’ve stopped playing and training completely and we’re just waiting for the go-ahead as to when we can go back.

“The challenge is making sure everyone stays fit, healthy and safe, so that when we do return we can be raring to go. 

“Last time when we stopped, we only managed to have one or two training sessions before our first game back, so we need to make sure we’re looking after ourselves in this period.

“It is frustrating for us all, but we understand the reasoning behind it. I think we’ve only played six games and some others have only played three! It’s been very stop and start but we understand why and we hope everyone keeps safe, that’s the main thing.” 

Following a second suspension in the campaign, the group are focusing on keeping fit and having healthy competition with one another whilst they’re unable to train. 

“As a team, we’ve been doing some Strava runs,” Bridie told us.

“The coaches have been setting out two or three runs a week for us to do, which might be a set distance or set amount of time. 

“Then we can all share our results on the app which means we can see what each other is doing, and it has been good to see some of the girls doing extra, like bike rides or their own runs.

“The gym being closed means that it has to be on pavements, so recently that has been quite slippy as you can imagine! You want to stay fit and healthy though so we’ve been doing it, seeing your teammate on the app doing a good time does motivate you too.” 

Hannon can’t wait to get back out on the pitch with her teammates as they aspire for promotion, but fully understands the reasoning behind the current postponement of playing. 

“This year our aim was promotion. We’ve said that for the last couple of years and we have seen the improvements over that time, we’ve been there or thereabouts. 

“There has consistently been two or three teams up the top end of the division over the years and we have been one of them, but it is such a hard league to get promoted from as only one goes up.  

“So hopefully, once we get back playing we can find some consistency and put in some good performances, we want to be able to finish the season no matter how long it may take. We all work full-time or we’re at university, so we all miss playing football, we can’t wait to get back to it."

Some comfort for the captain whilst at home has been the performances of the men’s team. Bridie is a big Leeds United fan and has her own ritual for watching matches on the box. 

“Like many other people will say I am sure, my home life has been quite boring! I do normal 9-5 hours working from home. After work I try to go for a run, but it gets dark early and you have to assess the weather as well at the minute! Other than that, it’s usual stuff like watching TV.

“There’s been a lot of football on TV, I go on the fixture list every day to see what game I can watch that night, so I’ve seen a lot of football! 

“I am really, really proud to be a Leeds player and a Leeds United fan as well. It’s so nice to see us playing well and being the most entertaining team in the Premier League!

"I sit there in my actual playing shirt, watching the team and giving them my support. Marching On Together!”

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