Chelsea Ladies boss Emma Hayes. Picture: Catherine Etoe

Published: 30 July, 2015
by CATHERINE ETOE

IT is not every day that female football managers get to live out their dreams. 

But on Saturday, Chelsea Ladies boss Emma Hayes will do just that when her side face Notts County in the final of the FA Women’s Cup at Wembley Stadium. 

The 38-year-old former Parliament Hill School pupil and Tottenham fan jokes that, as a young girl, she used to imagine herself walking out with a team at Wembley in the guise of Glenn Hoddle. 

“That was my first thought when we won the semi-final – I’m not Glenn Hoddle, I’m going to be myself, leading my own team out, and I’m not just a Londoner, I’m a north Londoner,” she says. 

“I drive past Wembley every day to get to Cobham.” 

Among the players Hayes has under her charge each day at Chelsea FC’s training ground are England’s World Cup bronze medalists Claire Rafferty, Eni Aluko and Katie Chapman. 

The team they will encounter in the final boast four of England’s medalists in their ranks, including Laura Bassett, who scored the own goal that put the Three Lionesses out of the World Cup semi-final, and former Arsenal Ladies striker Ellen White. 

Camden-born Hayes, who holds the élite Pro Licence qualification, predicts that the 26,000 fans who have already bought tickets for Saturday’s clash between the two Women’s Super League sides are in for a good game. 

“It’s two teams with two very contrasting styles of play, so that is going to make it interesting,” she says. 

“What you are going to get with Chelsea is a bit of flair. We’re creative, we play football in a certain way that I think will draw fans.” 

Having worked in the élite side of women’s football in both America and England since leaving her job as a sports development officer at Camden Council in 2001, Hayes says she has had some great days out as a manager. 

One of those came in 2007 as Vic Akers’s assistant when Arsenal Ladies clinched the Quadruple of domestic treble and European Cup. 

Her worst day out, however, came last season when Chelsea missed out on the WSL 1 title to professionals Liverpool on the final day of the season. 

Last term Hayes was juggling her work as Chelsea manager with a full-time job at the foreign exchange business Covent Garden FX which her father Sid set up 30 years ago. 

This season, however, Hayes is full-time at Chelsea and only helps out at the family business a couple of days a week. 

Her players are professional, too, and she says the Blues are now a different proposition. 

“As a team we’ve been a lot tougher to beat, physical, good on the counter and quick. I think we’ve gone up a level from last year,” she says. 

“The players still have the quality they had last year but they’ve been together longer, we’re full-time, more settled and have a stable management team. Those things are all a factor in improved perfor­mances.” 

Those performances had elevated Chelsea to the top of the table just before the league broke for the World Cup; but two defeats in as many weeks have seen them slide to third. 

Hayes is now ready to make the most of her Wembley date. 

“You’re not going to see a blow-out,” she says. “The last couple of cup finals in the men’s game have been pretty easy games for Arsenal. 

“I don’t think you’ll see that in the women’s game, so that in itself will make it an interesting contest.”