Calleigh Hedley's Journey: Balancing Motherhood and Football with Guernsey FC

Calleigh Hedley stands on the brink of a new season with Guernsey FC, but her mind is never far from home.

"I'm not looking forward to spending whole days away from him," she says, and the “him” in question isn’t a strike partner or a coach. It’s her son, Luca.

Goals, nappies and the new normal

Hedley has come back into the side after giving birth, having missed half of last season once she became pregnant. The transition from prolific forward to new mother and back again is not a neat, linear journey. It’s messy, emotional, and relentless.

Now her days are split between feeds and fitness work, broken sleep and pre-season drills. Training sessions sit alongside night-time wake-ups. Recovery is no longer just about ice baths and stretching; it’s about whether Luca has settled and how many hours she managed the night before.

If it sounds impossible, her family have refused to let it be.

"My family are amazing, they're always helping me with Luca," she told BBC Radio Guernsey. When she needs the gym, they step in. When Guernsey FC have a game, they step in again. “We'll have him, don't worry,” has become the soundtrack to her comeback. Without that, this season would be a very different conversation.

A ruthless return in front of goal

The numbers from last season still look absurd on paper. Eight appearances. Sixteen goals. Even with half a campaign wiped out, Hedley still finished as the sixth-highest scorer in the Southern Region Women's Football League Division One South.

Guernsey FC, heading into only their second season in the English league pyramid, know exactly what that kind of firepower means. They don’t just want her back. They need her back.

The early signs suggest the instincts have survived the lay-off intact. In last month’s Women's FA Cup tie – Guernsey’s first-ever appearance in the competition – Hedley scored both goals in a 3-2 home defeat to Chessington & Hook United. The first arrived almost before anyone had settled into their seats: two minutes on the clock, ball in the net.

"I was shocked," she admitted. "I wasn't sure I was even going to get a goal, let alone score in two minutes."

For a player wondering how her body would respond after pregnancy, that moment mattered. The finish didn’t just put Guernsey in front; it flicked a switch in her mind. She belonged out there again.

"It definitely helped me feel a bit better coming back into it," she said. Her family watched from the sidelines. Luca was there too. For all the talk of systems and structures, this was football stripped back to something simple: a mother scoring goals with her son in the crowd.

The island, the air miles and the sacrifice

The romance of the story meets reality as soon as the fixtures list comes out.

The Green Lionesses open their league campaign at home to Bognor Regis Town on Sunday. That one is straightforward: familiar pitch, familiar routines, Luca only a short drive away. After that, the picture changes quickly. Three consecutive away games. Early alarms. Flights to England. Long days that start in the dark and finish in the dark.

For most players, away days mean coaches, playlists and pre-match naps. For Hedley, they mean something else entirely: a full day separated from her son.

"I don't know if I'll be able to commit to every single away game," she said. The honesty is striking. There’s no empty promise, no pretence that this will be easy. "But I will definitely be trying to do some, but it'll be difficult having a day away from him."

That is the calculation now. Not just form and fitness, but flights and feelings. Every trip off the island comes with a cost that can’t be measured in ticket prices or time zones.

A different kind of pressure

Guernsey FC will hope the ruthless finisher who tore through defences last season can keep doing the same in their second year in the pyramid. The evidence so far – 16 goals from eight league games last term, two more in their historic FA Cup debut – suggests she hasn’t lost her edge.

Yet the most telling part of Hedley’s story may not be the goals at all. It’s the tension she lives with: the drive to compete at a serious level, and the pull of a small boy at home who has changed everything.

The Green Lionesses will walk out to start their campaign on Sunday with a proven scorer leading the line, backed by a family network that has turned itself into an unofficial support staff. Each time Hedley finds the net this season, the celebration will carry a little more weight.

Because behind every sprint, every shot, every early-morning flight, there’s the same unspoken question: how far can a young mother on a small island push her game, without losing touch with the little boy who now shapes her world?