A Wales international is playing a crucial part in the first steps of women’s professional football in Canada.
Josie Longhurst plays for Vancouver Rise in the Northern Super League, which is just coming to the climax of its inaugural season.
“It’s just been amazing to be a part of a first professional season here in Canada,” she tells SheKicks.net. “It’s amazing for women’s football out here.”
She praises the high standards of the league, the facilities on offer at her club, and the broadcast deals meaning the public know exactly what’s going on.
“When you’re out and about in Vancouver, you bump into people and they’re like, ‘What do you do?’
“‘I play football.’
“They know about Vancouver Rise and they want to get to the games. You can tell that it’s a really outdoorsy, sporty city and I love living here.”
“Vancouver is amazing”
Josie had just finished the 2023-24 season with Reading when her agent told her that a team in Vancouver were interested in her. She then spent some time with Vancouver Whitecaps, playing in the CONCACAF Champions Tournament, getting used to the city and the country, which she describes as “a cool experience”. That made her mind up for her pretty quickly: “I had already decided from then that I wanted to go for it with the Rise.”
The club smoothed the route for her to cross the Atlantic, meaning she didn’t have to worry about finding accommodation: “I had a decent amount of time to get my life together before I moved across the world.”
All she really needed to do was acclimatise to a city that’s very different to anything she had experienced before.
“The first few months, I was just in awe. You walk outside and you see the mountains everywhere and you just don’t really get that in England. I settled in quickly, but I hadn’t processed where I was living and how amazing it was for probably a good few months.”
She spent the summer months enjoying what the area has to offer – paddleboarding on the lakes with her room-mate, taking a quick stroll to the beach, and the occasional easy hike.
And it wasn’t just the city she settled into – she’s also picked up a trace of a Canadian accent.
“My family back home have been telling me, ‘What’s going on?;
“It was inevitable. I must pick up accents easily. When I lived in Wales, I picked up a bit of a Welsh accent as well.”
Josie Longhurst: Rhian Wilkinson is amazing
Josie qualifies to play for Wales through her grandfather, and spent some time in the country herself as a teenager when she played for Cardiff City. She’s had international recognition throughout the age groups, and been called into training camps by Rhian Wilkinson since she took over the senior team.
“Rhian is amazing. I think she’s a really great manager and she’s really good at keeping in touch. It’s been difficult for me. I’ve been in and out of the senior set-up, but all I can really do is focus on my club and performing there and hoping that I get some regular call-ups.”
Wales is a challenging international set-up for female players, with the top-flight Adran Premier not yet full-time professional, and no under-21s or under-23s for the national team. It means that once players have aged out of the under-19s, they need to be ready to make the big step to the senior side.
But Josie thinks her game is improving as she adapts to the more direct style of the Canadian league.
“There’s a lot more 1v1. dribbling to beat your players and more direct to goal rather than just keep and finding the gaps,” she explains.
Vancouver Rise now head into the post-season play-offs, where they face Ottawa Fury in the semi-finals on Tuesday, 4th November. Josie is focused on getting the result with her team – but she does have one eye on December.
“I’ll be coming back home for Christmas!” she says. “I’ve been lucky. I’ve had a lot of my family and friends come out to visit me over the season and I’ll get to go home for Christmas-time.”
