SOPHIE WHITEHOUSE HAS lived a peripatetic life, to say the very least.
The Republic of Ireland’s newest goalkeeper has a fascinating story to tell.
It’s best explained in chronological order.
Whitehouse was born in England to an Irish mother and English father. Her Mam, Caroline Sergeant, was born on these shores and spent her early years in Dun Laoghaire.
England was home for the first three months of Whitehouse’s life, before her mother’s work — development in public health, in that instance– brought them to East Africa.
The family settled there for a decade or so, four years put down in Kenya and the rest in Tanzania.
After that, they moved to the US: Washington DC first, where Caroline took up a job in the World Bank Development Fund, before Sophie went on to attend university in New York and California.
While returning to England for Christmas and summers through the years, Whitehouse has lived there full-time recently, operating as Lewes’ number one in the FA Women’s Championship.
This week, she’s on an international camp Stateside with Vera Pauw’s World Cup bound Ireland, nailing her allegiances to the mast.
“I sound really American and recently got my American citizenship but I wasn’t born there,” she explains from Texas ahead of Saturday’s friendly against the world champions.
“My Mom’s Irish and I feel like I was always looking forward to playing international football and a moment like this. It’s kind of been an ongoing process and it’s exciting that I’m here now.”
That’s the crux of it.
But there’s much more to explore when you scratch the surface.
So many questions to ask and memories to share.
What was childhood like?
“Quite wild in a way, I guess you could say,” Whitehouse smiles. “I grew up not really wearing shoes and just like running around. It made me fall in love with animals and nature because there’s huge biodiversity in that part of the world and then I guess respect for other cultures. It was nice.”
She has one sister, a year-and-a-bit older, who paved the way in terms of football.
She played on the school team, while Sophie played with the boys team for her age group as there weren’t enough girls, and they eventually formed a mixed team.
The Beautiful Game was the one constant throughout her nomadic existence.
The movement and different life experiences stood to her.
“It definitely shaped me, made me who I am. Growing up in East Africa is very different from a more developed upbringing. I’d seen a lot of the world before I was even old enough to know what the world was. So I have an understanding of what different cultures are. It’s a broader world view.
“And then moving to the US was a complete culture shock. I kind of knew it would be similar to England where I would go back for Christmas and the summers but it was still quite a shock. At that point, I still had an English accent when I was young so nobody really understood me.
“At football training, I joined some small clubs, and they didn’t really understand what I was saying so that was an adjustment as well. Then it was just an adjustment living in a place that’s so developed. I mean DC is a lovely place but it was different so it was an adjustment.
“The US is such a big country that some people don’t realise there is so much out in the world. It was just adjusting to the fact some people had never travelled, some people had only been to the states around where I lived. But DC is very diverse and has a lot of different cultures merged together
“The one thing I struggled with was just how materialistic everywhere else was, even England compared to where I was growing up. I just remember I had only one pair of shoes but all my friends had like 10 different pairs of shoes and I would have my sister’s hand-me-down boots. That was just a change.”
Have you changed?
“No, I’m still quite similar. Some of the girls on my team make fun of me because I only really have two pairs of shoes. Even on this trip I was trying to think and they were like, ‘Well you need to have options’ and I said, ‘Well I have only three pairs.’.
“I have probably… like four solid pairs, two of those are gym shoes,” she adds.
They’ll be put to use in this international camp.
Courtney Brosnan is Ireland’s established number one, with fellow WSL goalkeepers Grace Moloney and Megan Walsh the regular back-ups. Whitehouse may be capped at some stage, but she’s not setting her hopes too high.
“For me it’s a chance to train at international level,” she explains. “I’ve never been on an international camp before so it’s a step in the right direction for my ambitions. But for this camp particularly, it’s just showing what I’m about and how I play to kind of get my foot in the door. That’s really all I can do at this point.”
this is kewl 🍀 so honoured https://t.co/aDpp7ozpZr
— Sophie Whitehouse (@so_whitehouse) March 31, 2023
It’s been a baptism of fire, between travelling and meeting her new team-mates, but Whitehouse has been given a warm welcome. She’s well aware, too, that she’s a threat now as World Cup squad competition heats up. “That’s football,” she nods.
She previously crossed paths with Harriet Scott and Ruesha Littlejohn at Birmingham City, and played with Lucy Quinn at Tottenham Hotspur. There, she also trained with Alex Morgan when the US superstar came back from having her first child.
She encountered others on the US collegiate scene and grew up watching the World Cup champions. “They’ve a very different game to European football. It is a little more direct, physical and quick, speedy game so it will be interesting to see how we compete against that.”
Pauw spoke of a notable improvement in Whitehouse at Lewes, where she really put herself in the shop window with consistent performances week on week. And she credits her goalkeeping coach, Daniel Matraszek, and the club environment in general for her development.
“As soon as I realised I could be playing for Lewes, I was really excited because of their club culture and their background, being the only club in the world who pay their men and women equally. With my upbringing, I knew that was something I was really interested in and now being there, the fabric of the club drives everything that they do.
“I’m playing consistently, I feel very confident in my game now and it’s just exciting that I have the ability to show that here now as well.”
The story continues.
