i-D and Nike took Keira Walsh back to Rochdale to learn how her formative years led her to become one of England’s most pivotal players.
Keira Walsh has been a diehard Manchester City fan her whole life. In fact, Shaun Goater and Nicolas Anelka lived in her house when she was a kid, in a rural neighbourhood of Rochdale beside the Pennines. Shaun and Nicolas largely kept themselves to themselves. They’d just hang out on the kitchen work surface next to the fridge, waiting for Keira to feed them.
Keira first fell in love with football watching live games on television with her dad, Peter, a Man City fanatic. Her father would point out things that superstars like Yaya Toure or David Silva did on the pitch that Keira could copy in her own youth games at the weekends. When the time for watching was done, Keira and her father would go out to the field opposite their home and knock a ball back and forth to each other. This ritual of theirs started when Keira was just five. Sometimes Peter would grumble about wanting to eat his tea after a long day at work, or having to give up his Sunday golf sessionsto drive her to games. But he never said no.
Keira had trials at Everton, where she thought she’d get more chances as a young, up-and-comingplayer. But her mother insisted she give City a chance. Her hunch proved right: Keira went straight into City’s first team aged just 17 and has never really been out of it since, debuting for the England national team three years later.
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