Longhurst relishes ‘proud moment’ with West Ham
The lifelong Hammers fan tells Molly Mcelwee what the side’s London Stadium debut means
Tomorrow, as West Ham’s women’s team walk out at the London Stadium for the first time, the gaping bowl of the 60,000-seat stadium will be unfamiliar territory for all but one player. Defensive midfielder Kate Longhurst is the only born-andbred Hammers fan in the squad and has been supporting the men’s side for more than 20 years.
“My first game was my 10th birthday,” Longhurst tells The Daily Telegraph. “We lost 5-1 to Leeds United and had three players sent off.” Now 30, she says she cannot remember a time when she was not “obsessed” with the club.
She made her match-day programme debut not as a playing professional, but aged six when – in another West Ham-themed gift
– her father had her photo included. The image is of Longhurst in her family’s Witham garden fully kitted out: a claret-and-blue shirt with sleeves billowing past her elbows, playing with a ball that appears half the size of her tiny frame.
She has been a season-ticket holder since childhood and was at the club’s first match at the London Stadium in 2016, too.
When West Ham went fully professional last season, Longhurst did not think twice about leaving Liverpool and coming home.
“It was an opportunity I didn’t think would happen, to play for the team you’ve supported your whole life,” she says.
Scroll through Longhurst’s Twitter feed and she can be found bemoaning match-day changes due to TV scheduling, causing clashes with her own fixtures. She does get to catch more men’s home games than when she was at Liverpool, and some of West Ham’s big names, including Declan Rice, returned the favour by supporting the women at Rush Green.
She moved to Merseyside from Chelsea along with current West Ham coach Matt Beard five years ago, and the pair helped end Arsenal’s Women’s Super League dominance, winning league titles in 2013 and 2014. When Beard was recruited to overhaul West Ham for their inaugural WSL season just over a year ago, it felt like the stars had aligned for Longhurst’s dream move back to London.
That she etched her name into club history, scoring their first top-flight goal, was only fitting, and the Hammers finished seventh and made a run to the FA Cup final, an achievement Longhurst said was the best of her career, ranking above her two WSL titles.
Despite their 3-0 defeat at Wembley, the 43,000-strong crowd will have been good practice as the side enter uncharted waters at their club’s imposing men’s stadium. An aggregate of more than 62,000 attended WSL games at the Etihad and Stamford Bridge on the opening weekend to great fanfare, but the London Stadium can lack atmosphere even full. With just 20,000, a third of capacity, predicted for tomorrow against Tottenham Hotspur, are there fears it will fall flat?
“Yes,” Longhurst says steadily, “But I think doing it as a one-off is good for the players but also the fans that come, they’re the ones that we want to capture to fill up our [Rush Green] stadium.”
And, just like the day of her 10th birthday, her father (and the rest of her family) will join her at the stadium of the team who inspired her: “It will be really good for them to watch me play at the ground of the team we support, to see me on the stage I want to be playing at, it will be a proud moment.”
West Ham women season tickets are still available from £15. For more information visit eticketing.