The life of a footballer. A year ago, Leanne Kiernan extended her contract with Liverpool, which, along with her purchase of an apartment in the city, sealed her connection to the club she had joined from West Ham in 2021. Eleven months later? The 27-year-old Irish international was looking for a new home in Newcastle. “It’s a very temporary life,” she says with a laugh. That it is. In a “have boots, will travel” kind of way.
“I was settled in Liverpool alright. But then again, with our job you’re never really settled. So it’s always about trying to make a home in each place you go. But it’s never really home – for me that’s Cavan and always will be.”
The leaving of Liverpool was, though, a wrench. It might not be Breffni-land, but Kiernan had grown to love the place. “The Scousers are great people, they’re kind of similar to the Irish,” she says. “I feel like maybe after football I’ll go back and live in Liverpool for a few years. I really like the city.”
The arrival of a new manager, Gareth Taylor, in the same month that she signed that new contract set in chain her decision to move on. “He had a different kind of style of play that I knew didn’t suit me as well as the way we had been playing before,” she says. She was allowed join Nottingham Forest in the WSL2 on loan last January, that brief spell opening her eyes to the lure of a fresh start.
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“I had a great few years at Liverpool, made so many good friends, but I felt like I was ready to make the jump to a new place, a new club, and start afresh. Forest were brilliant for me, and my time there allowed me see how high the quality is in the WSL2, how competitive it is.”
“Liverpool was all I had known for a few years, and I could easily have stayed there and seen out my contract. But I just decided I wanted to move out of my comfort zone, go and fight for a position in Newcastle and hopefully help get them get promoted. That’s the plan. And I’m excited. It’s always good to challenge yourself.”
Another big factor in the decision was Kiernan’s international ambition and her desire to add to her 38 caps by playing a part in the forthcoming World Cup qualifying play-offs – and, hopefully, next year’s finals in Brazil. It was all very well being with a WSL club, but if she wasn’t getting regular football, then she’d be short of chances to make her case for a place in the Irish frontline.
“Don’t get me wrong, my life outside of football at Liverpool was brilliant, but the reason I am in England is to play. I did feel like it probably wasn’t the place where I needed to be right now in my career if I wanted to get the game-time I need – and definitely, Ireland was a big factor in my decision to move to Newcastle.”
Her last year at Liverpool was a poignant one too. She had been signed for the club by Matt Beard, the man who had brought her from Shelbourne to West Ham in 2018. He had unwavering faith in Kiernan and remained supportive through the string of injury spells she endured. It was a blow, then, when he parted company with Liverpool in February of last year, but his death seven months later was utterly devastating.
“Since coming over, I had Matt the whole way throughout my career. It was tough. It was just sad. So unbelievably sad looking at his wife and his kids, I would have known them all quite well. It was just heartbreaking how it all ended.”
“I can give nothing but praise to Matt. He gave me the opportunity to get to England and to stay in England. He believed in me the whole way through. ”
While Beard’s role in her life can never be replicated, Kiernan had a good feeling when she first spoke to Tanya Oxtoby, Newcastle’s Australian manager who was in charge of Northern Ireland until last year.
“I had a few phone calls over the last six months with coaching staff at different clubs and I felt like Tanya was probably the most similar to Matt. It just gave me a good feeling. I was at home in Cavan and as soon as I came off the call, I just said to my parents, ‘I’m going to Newcastle’.”
Newcastle were in the fourth tier of English football as recently as 2023, but they turned professional on winning promotion to the third division that year, and 12 months later they went up again, earning their spot in WSL2.
Although they’ve lost Kiernan’s Irish team-mate Emily Murphy to the WSL’s Brighton, in an undisclosed record sale for the club, they’ve gone on a major recruitment drive during the summer. They have a squad packed with current or former internationals, including another Republic of Ireland player, Aoife Mannion, who joined a year ago.
They finished sixth last season, this round of investment suggesting their parent club, and its Saudi owners, might finally be putting in at least some of the loot required for a big push towards promotion to the top flight. The crowd of 38,000 that turned up to watch the team’s derby against Sunderland at St James’ Park last season possibly awakened them to the potential of the project.
After a few weeks back in Cavan during the summer, Kiernan feels ready for this new challenge. “I was looking at people’s social media and they were all going away to these fancy places for their holidays while I just spent three or four weeks on the farm.”
“But that’s the best way for me to reset for a new season. I turn off my phone, I don’t have any contact with football, I just enjoy being with my family. I’m not Leanne the footballer, I’m just Leanne. I guess it’s my safe place. The people I love are there. It kind of makes me think there’s so much more to my life than just football.”
“And your life can be consumed by football, maybe you only realise that when you’re out injured for so long. Then you get to work on things off the pitch – like, I’m currently doing my Green Cert [an agricultural qualification] online.”
Before moving to England, Kiernan had started a course in agriculture, that’s where she saw her future. Football interrupted that route, but she’s returned to it. “I’d like to study agricultural science, it’s something I really have a love for and I really enjoy learning about. You realise football isn’t your entire identity, you can find other things that you have an interest in and bring you comfort.”
For now, though, the focus is on football, specifically Wolves in Gateshead on Sunday, Newcastle’s first WSL2 fixture of the season. A fresh start.
