“I’m in a rush,” Amy Andrews says and she isn’t being rude.
She sits and she listens and she thinks and she laughs, but the quicker we can get this interview done, the closer she will be to what’s next. Words rat-a-tat out of her. “I want to win the Golden Boot, I want to win player of the season, I want us to win the Championship,” she says and, if this is not quite emphatic enough, she follows it with: “I want to win everything.”
If anybody can embody the ethos of a whole club then Andrews might just be the poster girl for Newcastle United women who, in the terminology of Becky Langley, the manager, are “unapologetically ambitious” in their outlook this season. After consecutive promotions, after turning full-time professional, their aspirations are unbound. “I’ve had a hard journey to get to where I am,” Andrews says. “I don’t just want to settle and then retire.”
Andrews is 24 and a striker. She joined Newcastle this summer after a year at Durham, also of the Women’s Championship, where she ended last season as the club’s top scorer. Before then, there were five years in the United States and 51 goals in 84 matches for Western Illinois University, her college team, and Tormenta FC in the USL W League. Hers has been a mazy pathway; growing up in the West Midlands and hurt by unsatisfactory experiences in academy football.
“I haven’t done it the normal way, so I feel like an outsider and feel like I’m in a hurry,” Andrews says but this, too, is a Newcastle theme. Since the club’s Saudi-led takeover in October 2021, the women’s setup has been brought into the fold and players who were leading double lives — juggling full-time jobs or education, or in Langley’s case, doing everything from putting out the cones to washing kits — can focus on football. They have resources now and a shared hunger.
“When I spoke to Becky about joining, I felt that Newcastle’s goals align with mine,” says Andrews. “It’s the club for me. Mentally, I’m built where if I’m not winning, then I’m losing. I might be learning but, in my head, I’m losing. If I haven’t reached the targets I’ve set, then I’m not happy. I got eight goals in the league and cup last season, but I wanted 10, so I lost.
“I’m very hard on myself but I’m a perfectionist. It works for me.”
Andrews in action for Durham against Sunderland last season (Stu Forster/Getty Images)
In other circumstances, from another person, this might come across as arrogance. But Andrews does not strut. She doesn’t behave as if laden with ego. It is more about the clarity of certainty. “It sounds weird and I can’t explain it, but it’s like I have a sixth sense where I know I’m going to make it to the top,” she says. “Right now, I’m under the radar and I’m fully aware I will be for a little bit.
“It’s like I’ve got a plan in my head. I don’t know what it is, I just have this mentality that is different. And that’s not me being cocky. I can’t control it, it’s just how I think… I will not stop until I’ve played for England and I’m in the Women’s Super League (WSL) because I would not be happy with myself if my career ended here. It’s nothing against people who want that, it’s just not what I want for myself.
“I love that pressure, though. Pressure makes some people crumble but I think if you don’t have pressure, it’s boring. When people read this they might say I’ve never been to an England camp, but look at Jamie Vardy (the Leicester City and England striker) – he came out of nowhere. I believe that if you have the right mindset and work hard, it will happen. If I get to the WSL and I’m scoring goals, I can’t be ignored.
“I don’t feel like the world’s against me but nobody else has turned around and told me I’m going to play for England, so I make myself believe it. I say it to myself and I push, really push. If it doesn’t happen, then it’s not meant to be — but I can’t imagine it not happening. I can’t envision it not happening. Does that make sense?”
It is an unforgiving attitude but it propels Andrews forward. Each setback becomes fuel. “I like it when people say negative things because I’m like, ‘Well, I’ll show you’. That fires me up. I feel like my journey in being released from Birmingham City, being released from Coventry, has given me that fire. I’ve just carried it.”
If anybody can be, Andrews is self-made. She has been “obsessed” with the game since her dad chucked her a ball at the age of three.
“He didn’t force anything on me; I was born to play,” she says. “I haven’t stopped since.” She grew up playing with boys at Leafield Athletic, where it was “intense and rough, but I loved it”, and there has never been a thought that life might offer anything else, even when disappointment followed.
“I got picked up by Birmingham and then Coventry, but I didn’t enjoy it,” she says. “I was very young — 12 or 13 — and I just didn’t get a chance. I didn’t get a game, I didn’t get any development, and they didn’t put any time into me. They spent more time with the girls who had been at the academies since the beginning. It was very scarring for me.
(Stu Forster/Getty Images)
“From my experience, it was very robotic in academies. It’s like you’re just a player, you’re not really a person. That’s not how I function in a team. The way Becky sees me isn’t just as a player, it’s as a person as well. I need that balance. I’m sure it’s not the same for all clubs and I don’t know if it’s changed, but it should change.”
Andrews returned to Leafield and, unable to continue with the boys’ team, played with other girls, staying until she was 18. “I was never going to give up,” she says. “There’s nothing wrong with a nine-to-five job, but I was never going to do something I wasn’t passionate about because that would have just made me unhappy. But I knew football wasn’t going to be an easy journey.”
Leaving for university in the United States in 2018 was “hard and in my first year I was homesick, but I told myself I had to make these sacrifices.” She studied criminology. “I’ve always loved watching crime shows and would dress up as a police officer when I was young,” she says. “It sounds bad and I got my degree and good grades, but I only cared about football.
“It was the best five years of my life, I met my partner, we had fun, the football was great, I was playing, scoring, breaking records. I will always appreciate it. I played semi-pro with Tormenta. We won the championship and I thought I’d give the draft (for the NWSL) a go, but because I’m British and there are only a few international spots, and because I didn’t go to a massive school, the odds were against me.”
More fuel, another fire.
“It was upsetting,” Andrews said. “Sometimes it feels like it’s been knock after knock. I went a bit extreme. Beast mode, I call it. Grind mode. I had six months left on my degree and I would work out three times a day: wake up, the gym, lunch, smoothies, protein shakes, play football, outside for a run. I’ve always believed if you work hard, someone will reward you for it.
“I made a highlights video and emailed it out, sending it to coaches. I didn’t get responses. I needed an agent, so I sent it off again, but it was, ‘We don’t know you’ and I got rejected. The agent I’m with now actually rejected me but I followed him on LinkedIn, he watched my highlight video and he was like, ‘I’ve got a feeling about you’. He picked me up.
“Maybe it’s a big cringy and maybe people would say, ‘God, she’s desperate’, but I don’t care. Of course, I was desperate. I wanted to play professional football. I knew I was good enough. That mentality is really what’s got me here.”
(Harriet Massey/Newcastle United via Getty Images)
Durham, who are not affiliated with a men’s team and consistently overachieve, gave Andrews her chance and she took it. Like her, Newcastle are aiming for the top. “People see us as a target, but we’re so hungry as a team and a club,” she says. “Every single game is going to feel like a cup final.
“That helps to instil togetherness and it genuinely is like a family here. Becky’s brilliant at making sure we keep together; she reminds me of Jurgen Klopp because she’s so keen on good relationships within the squad. That’s what will get us the wins. Seeing your friend get hit and then wanting to fight for them and to win the ball back; you want to help them.”
In terms of level and geography, the move from Durham is hardly huge, but the environment is different. “When you walk around, you’ve got so many people with Newcastle tops on,” she says. “I’ve never been in a city where the love for their club is so big. The fanbase we have is phenomenal and it makes you want to be a Geordie. I’ve never seen anything like it.”
At Newcastle, goals and effort will ensure Andrews is adored and this is very much part of the plan she envisages. After a creditable 1-1 draw in their opening-day fixture at London City, they play their first home game at Kingston Park on Sunday against Sheffield United. “There was a bit of nervousness, excitement and adrenaline in our first game, but we’ve very got that out of our system,” she says. “It’s like, ‘OK, we’re ready for the season now’.”
Andrews is ready for her first meaningful Newcastle goal, having scored in a pre-season friendly against AC Milan at St. James’ Park in August and celebrating with a theatre-performer-style bow.
“I love coming up with celebrations and I think that’s a factor in me scoring,” she says. “It pushes me. Kids love a celebration. The men do it and I think women should do it more. I do like the bow — I think that’s quite unique. But I think a salute would be really cool, too; saluting magpies like the old superstition, which really links to the club.”
Some way to introduce yourself to the Geordie faithful! Take a bow, @amyandrews_x 🙌
Watch highlights from yesterday’s @Sela Cup win over AC Milan on the Official Newcastle United app!#NUFCWomen pic.twitter.com/bdrgUSS6jA
— Newcastle United Women (@NUFCWomen) August 11, 2024
There is no time to waste and little time to rest; Andrews says she is “unhealthily obsessed with football when I’m not on the pitch. I’m at home watching it and thinking about it and talking about it. I can’t help it. It’s just the way I am.”
If Andrews reaches her goals, then chances are Newcastle will have reached theirs. That is the big idea, anyway. “You only live once, and I want to maximise this career,” she says. “I want to do everything. I want to thrive in it. If it doesn’t happen, then I’ll hold my hands up.”
And if it does? Andrews starts laughing. “I’ll be like ‘Told you so’,” she says.
(Top photo: George Caulkin/The Athletic)
