How Maya Le Tissier defied the odds to kickstart career ahead of her second Wembley final
Growing up on the small island of Guernsey, Le Tissier required frequent travel back and forth to the mainland to have any chance of a professional career, as dad Darren recalls to WFC...
It’s now almost a decade since the first Women’s FA Cup final was held at Wembley Stadium, as Chelsea defeated Notts County 1-0 hot off the heels of England’s historic bronze medal at the 2015 World Cup.
Among many over the subsequent nine years, it was a watershed period for the women’s game in England, the combination of the Lionesses’ breakout tournament which captured the hearts of so many and the first showpiece occasion at the national stadium which has now become a regular home for the final and many England matches, including the Euro 2022 final.
Everyone has a story to tell about their memories of that first final, but for one player who will be back there for a second final in a row this Sunday, that story is unique compared to many of her cohorts on either side, whether Manchester United or first-time finalists Tottenham Hotspur.
That player is Guernsey-born Maya Le Tissier, whose fledgling career was at a tipping point.
The 22-year-old has been a standout star in the Man United team since arriving to much fanfare from Brighton & Hove Albion in 2022 as one of the highest rated young defenders in the country, but her beginnings are much more humble.
In fact, if the entire population of the channel island where she grew up flocked to Wembley on Sunday afternoon, there would still be 18,000 spare seats, such is the difference in size and space.
Closer in geography to France than it is mainland England, it offers an idyllic lifestyle filled with sandy beaches and quaint towns, but not the ideal surroundings to kick off a fledgling football career.
Dad Darren had played for one of the island’s main clubs, St. Martins A.C., and daughter Maya started playing for the boys’ teams from the age of four, sharing her dad’s passion until the point came for Le Tissier senior to focus on his daughter.
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“Maya started playing and I was maybe 34 or 35 and I’d played so much football in my career I was like ‘right, into coaching!’” he recalls. “She was enjoying it and I suppose we got to a point where it was like anything, it was just grassroots football but by the time she got to 10 or 11 there was a gap with the Guernsey FA, they weren’t providing any on-island what we’d call elite training.”
Darren and good family friend Rob Jones therefore set up their own academy, initially for one year group, going around local clubs and selecting up to 15 children to be part of the first team.
At that point, Maya wasn’t involved properly, but given her dad was leading the academy she’d often tag along with a ball at her feet, and current Premier League star with Bournemouth, Alex Scott, was part of the same team having grown up on the island.
When the mainland came calling having spotted Scott’s prodigious talent, it opened the door for Maya who didn’t take long to have her own talent spotted too.
“I had some connections with Southampton, they’d come across to do a soccer school on the island and we were getting Alex over there into their academy and sort of piggy-backed on the back of that to get regular games against their academy sides.
“We’d always do quite well and one time Maya came along for the trip and we sent her on. She played really, really well and Terry Moore the academy manager at the time came and asked me who she was.
“I laughed and was like ‘Oh, that’s my daughter’ and he said she was the best player on the pitch and you need to get her across. I was just like ‘yeah thanks very much’ and I think she was only eight or nine at the time.”
Darren took daughter Maya across to Hampshire for trials, but soon the logistics of the flights back and forth from Guernsey reared its ugly head and threatened to derail Le Tissier’s future career.
“Martina Heath was there who is still at Southampton today. Maya got through the trial but we said we were from Guernsey and it wasn’t going to be straight forward,” he recalls. “It was Monday, Thursday and a game at the weekend. We said ‘we can’t do this, but we hope you’ll give us access just even on a once a month basis’.
“Martina and the others went away and uhm’d and ahh’d and they said that was fine, bring her as much as you can and that was absolutely fine for about two seasons where once a month we’d come across.”
While Scott was travelling weekly, Maya was still playing boys football for St. Martins around her sparse trips to Hampshire, before an intervention from The FA was potentially going to put a stop to a career which has led to Wembley this Sunday.
“We had a call from Martina who said the FA had been down and the next time you’re over they want a chat. The guy came over and said ‘we can’t be doing this’. I was like ‘excuse me?’
“They said she wasn’t following the academy pathway, she was just doing bits and bobs. I said ‘no disrespect, but she’s been doing this for two years and it was fine’. Hampshire found it fine too, but he was adamant.”
He continues, of the potential repercussions on Maya “I said ‘you’re going to break this girl’s heart. Where is she meant to go from here?’ She was clearly of standard to be in the academy and they were turning around as an FA saying no.
“They spoke about welfare of the child but I said as parents the welfare was our concern and we had no concerns whatsoever. Her school was up to date, the reports were fine and I think in the end it went all the way up to Kay Cossington and it came back she couldn’t do it but she could come to these new satellite centres in the south west with Sarah Lawler was running.”
The centres ran four or five times a season, which saw the Le Tissier’s and daughter Maya fly into Exeter and back, where she was joined by future Brighton teammate Katie Robinson in being placed into the unofficial England U15s age group.
“It wasn’t technically a side,” says Darren. “It was to get them in and train and be around the U16s group to get them ready for that step up.”
With Maya now 15 and approaching her GCSEs, it was a pivotal point of no return for the whole family, with Maya adamant she was going to be a professional footballer, and made the bold decision herself to leave the island she’d only ever known once she’d finished her exams.
“At that point, we knew Maya needed to be in the UK. She said she’d do sixth form in the UK, but we were quite conscious Maya had grown up on an island with beaches and the sea and only 60,000 people, so what was the best environment for her?
“We were going to go to Bristol but we didn’t. We went to Reading but it was too inner-city for her at that time, too in your face. Us Guernsey people are all extremely laid back, but the same weekend we went down to Brighton and Worthing College and Maya went to play for their academy a couple of times and they really liked her.
“We were trying to find a host family as at that time there was minimal support for stuff like that, but with the help of the college we did piece it all together. We were quite lucky, we had to fund it all because that just wasn’t around back then but it’s what she wanted to do.”
Maya studied at college and trained with the development squad after making the permanent move to the south coast, but impressed so much it wasn’t long before then head coach Hope Powell had her around the first team.
“She made her debut against Chelsea in the Continental Cup and just took off. She passed her B-tech sport but god knows how because she was never there, she was always with the first team during the day! She’s quite a clever cookie and everything they get taught with England in the analysis and everything…I think that all backed into the B-tech and I think she took those experience and just popped it into her exams.
“At 18, she went into a player house and I have to say Hope was so good to her. Maya had a good grounding from good people, from Sarah to Hope, and it was meeting those people at the right time. We as a family feel lucky. Maya’s ability and determination to succeed even against the challenges, leaving home when she did, it just transpires with Maya that nothing was going to stop her. ‘This is what I’m good at and I’ll give up everything to achieve my aim and move away from my friends and family at 16’.
“Fair play to Maya, to have that determination and sacrifice to do it and ultimately, she’s been proved right. She’s where she wants to be at 22, but we had the breaks at the right time, but the Hampshire bit was a car crash waiting to happen in what would we do? Because it would have sent her into a tailspin.”
It wasn’t just Maya who made sacrifices though. Darren lays bare the expense it regularly cost to get their daughter to the mainland and back, to the tune of almost £700 a trip.
“A parent and a kid travelling, the hotel for three nights. We’d go on a Thursday and come back on a Sunday, flights there and back, there wasn’t much change once you’d done all that!
“We were lucky financially we both had good jobs and people sponsored and gave money for Maya to succeed. It was a community island effort combined with Maya’s absolute determination to make it, to get to the Women’s Super League, to do what she’s doing and we’d work hard and do anything to ensure that happened.
“Even now, you look at her and she’s so dedicated to her performance and ensuring she’s in the best position. She rarely goes out, she doesn’t drink, I suppose like the rest and being ex-military myself, they live a very military lifestyle. Turn up here, do this, do that, go home and do the same tomorrow. It’s very regimented.”
He points to the fact she is closing in on a fourth consecutive season without missing a game as a testament to that commitment, regularly ensuring even if she’d picked up a knock she’d do everything she could in her recovery to be ready for the next game.
On Sunday, she will no doubt walk out in the Manchester United team, where she’s just signed a new long-term deal, in the same stadium she graced for the first time last year, and has been a part of several England squads for games at Wembley too.
Under Marc Skinner, she has become both a key player and key pillar of the United defence, helping the team to an impressive clean sheet record last season, and will be hoping to get her hands on a first major trophy as well as walking the famous steps come 4:30pm.
While there was always an obvious dedication and talent to go with it, Darren admits he could have never envisaged his daughter playing for both Manchester United and England.
“I suppose if you strip it back, any parent just wants to give their kids the best opportunity to succeed in whatever walk of life it is. We’re fortunate as parents we could…even against all the odds, we could give Maya that opportunity to try and make it.
“If you’d said to me down Wide Lane 10 years ago she’d be where she is now, no, you couldn’t ever predict that. We were hopeful she’d have a career, but you didn’t know it could be this.”
Good to read a piece like this. A good example of the introverted approach the FA had at the time. Centres of Excellence had been cut back and opportunities for talented girls were being reduced & someone like Maya could have been missed.