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Leah Galton was in on goal in the second minute of the 2024 FA Cup final between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.“I thought: ‘Hang on a second, I might score here at Wembley, this is going to be great!’” she recalls.
Ella Toone played the through ball, but the onrushing Spurs goalkeeper Becky Spencer, who moved to Chelsea on loan in January, blocked Galton’s shot and collided with her.
“It was a fair challenge, nothing wrong with it,” Galton tells over the phone while at the hairdressers, aluminium foils in, ahead of Sunday’s FA Cup final against Chelsea.
Galton, 30, knew straight away something was wrong. When the United winger tried to stand up, she thought, “Oh no, this isn’t good.” She was pumped full of adrenaline. “I didn’t want to come off,” she says. “It was the final, it’s what you work towards. To have to come off after three minutes, no chance.”
Galton battled on.
“All I remember is Rach (Williams), who was playing upfront, looking at me saying: ‘You’ve got this, keep going’. We were just getting each other through the first half because she got whacked as well. It must have been comical hearing us on the pitch: ‘Keep going! Yeah I’m hurting but it’s alright!’,” laughs Galton.
United went into half-time 1-0 up thanks to Toone’s goal, but when Galton was assessed at the break, she knew it was not good news.
“They tried to put me back on which to this day I still don’t know why, but that’s another question for another time,” she says.
In the 50th minute she came off. “I just couldn’t run anymore,” she says.
United swept aside Spurs with a 4-0 victory, their first major trophy since the team launched in 2018. But it was a bittersweet moment for Galton who hobbled up the Wembley steps with a protective boot and crutches, supported by team-mates Gemma Evans and Williams.
“It’s definitely up there as the best feeling but also one of the hardest things I’ve done,” she says.
The team went out in London that night but the thought of the lengthy rehabilitation process over the summer which would prevent her from having a proper break during the off season crept in.
“It was difficult to switch off and actually have a good time because every time I got up or went to the toilet, I was in a lot of pain,” she says.
Galton’s ankle and leg were “swollen, black and blue”. She had two days for the swelling to go down before having an x-ray and MRI. Results revealed she had fractured her left tibia and suffered ankle ligament damage putting her out for three to four months.
It was a huge comedown. She altered her holiday plans, took blood-thinning medication to reduce the risk of blood clots when flying and saw a specialist numerous times to see if she needed surgery.
“It was just chaos,” she says. “We were moving house so that was even more fun!”
In the first month, her activity was limited given her leg was in a protective boot. She was reduced to doing cardio and upper body work. She couldn’t cycle and the repetitive nature was “the worst part of rehab”.
As soon as she could start rebuilding her calf muscle after a month, she felt a lot better as there was a goal to work towards.
During the summer at Carrington, however, the women’s team were moved out of their building, making way for the men’s team during renovation work at the training ground. For the 2024-25 season, the women’s team have been housed in a temporary — but, according to the club, high-quality — portable cabin.
Galton, who has been at United since the team’s inception, says it was “difficult”.
“I’ve been there from the beginning so to see progress and go from training at Leigh Sports Village underneath the stadium, having to move gym equipment back and forth to a room every time you use it, to then getting your own gym and not having to do that, for that to then be taken away again, it was uncomfortable.
“I had a lot of issues with it but you can’t really do anything about it, especially when it’s above your head.”
INEOS, the petrochemicals firm owned by English billionaire Sir Jim Ratcliffe, who has a 29 per cent stake in the club, recognises the move is a momentary backward step for the women’s team, given they were forced out of their new facilities, which opened in October 2023, to allow the men to use them.
Ratcliffe told UK newspaper The Sunday Times in August it was a “pragmatic” solution that ensured every team could continue training before adding “the men’s team make £800million, the women’s team cost £10m”. Once the renovations work are complete the plan is for the women’s team to move back into their building.
Having used the English Football Association’s facilities at St George’s Park as their pre-season training base for a couple of weeks, the team flew to Marbella for a week’s training ahead of the Women’s Super League campaign.
“Marbella was disgusting… in the nicest way!” says Galton. “The trip was great but it was probably the hardest pre-season I’ve ever done. It was torture. We ran, we ran, we played football and we ran.”
Galton had been out for eight weeks and was starting from a different point to her team-mates, but even they found it challenging.
“They said their physical output, with the heat and doing double sessions was a lot,” she says.
Physical performance coach Al Stewart, who joined the team in April last year, was barking orders. “He’s amazing, it’s not a bad thing at all, he’s so good, that’s why it was so hard,” says Galton.
“When I look back at it now I’m super glad that happened because it put me in a great place to then start the season. I was probably the fittest I’ve ever felt and physically ready.”
Galton cites the team’s physical condition as one of the reasons for their success this season, having finished third in the WSL and secured Champions League qualification.
“We’ve maintained it (fitness) throughout. Al’s done things at the right time throughout the season to keep us at peak fitness.”
Galton also feels existing players have improved and United were savvy with their five summer signings.
“We’ve all bonded. We all know how each other plays. That’s the weird thing. I haven’t known Celin (Bizet) and Grace (Clinton, who returned on loan from Spurs) for a long time, but it feels like I have, which is mad. That has happened across the whole team which was amazing.”
Some of the team meet up for coffee and go for dog walks, but Galton takes a different approach. “I’m at a place in my life where my time is my time,” she says. “I need that time, with my dogs and family, at home.
“A lot of the girls are still at the age where football and their friends are everything in their life. They meet up a lot. Don’t get me wrong, I still go out and have a coffee with them, but I enjoy being at work because I’m not always around the same people all the time.
“I don’t think I’d be able to do it if it was my whole life. That’s the same as the national team.”
England have previously enquired about Galton’s availability, but the winger was honest about her needs at this time.
“I need to enjoy what I’m doing when I’m doing it,” she says. “I’m not saying I wouldn’t enjoy it because it’s the national team, but that’s the time when I take the breaks. So when I go back into training, I’m refreshed and ready to go.
“When they all go away on (international) camp and they don’t get a break and have one day off, I need four days off to reset and have my own space, to just be me and not Leah Galton who plays football for Manchester United. That’s really important and what has got me through this season.”
In March 2018, just three months after joining Bayern Munich, Galton took a break from professional football.
“I just really wasn’t having a good time mentally,” she says. “It just wasn’t working for me.”
In the summer of that year, however, Casey Stoney, who went on to manage the San Diego Wave in the NWSL and is now the head coach of Canada, was assembling United’s first women’s team.
Galton had been out of the game for four months. “I had missed it,” she says. “I felt like it was the perfect time to join somewhere new, everyone was new, the whole thing was new, so I could grow with that.”
Those seven years have flown by. “United is just a part of me now,” says Galton, whose family are Leeds supporters.
“It’s grown with me as I have grown. It was the timing when I fell out of love with football and I came back to it. I’ve always loved football, but I’ve always loved United.”
Winning their first major trophy last year has shifted the team’s mindset. “Everyone has that belief — we can win things, we’re going to do well, we’re on the up,” she says.
That mentality was demonstrated most clearly in the Manchester derby earlier this month when United secured Champions League qualification with a 2-2 draw. It was “a kick in the face”, according to Galton, to go 2-0 down at Old Trafford against City. They knew they just needed a point to make it to Europe. Despite being a player down from the 69th minute after Aoife Mannion was sent off, United ground out a result.
“I wanted to cry because I was so tired but I was so happy,” she says. “That game epitomises our season. We still fight. Two years ago, we probably would have lost that game 3- or 4-0. We would have lost our heads. But we pull together when we need to. We’re never going to give up, which is something new to this team.”
Galton would love to know where that change has come from.
“I’ve always wanted it to be there,” she says. “I want to say it’s the growth over time, a deep-rooted thing. One person buys in because if this person is running extra, it’s very much: ‘I’ll run for my team-mate, I’m not just going to leave them in the s***’.”
Galton believes the team has great potential, especially given its young dynamism. “It’s amazing to think in two or three years if you keep everyone together what that team is going to do,” she says.
The club’s CEO Omar Berrada has set the men’s and women’s team audacious goals: winning the Premier League and WSL by 2028.
“As a women’s team, yes, we all know our ambitions,” says Galton. “We do speak about it, it’s very much on the front of our minds. But I can’t really speak so much as a whole club because obviously we’re not really in contact with that side of things. But we’re very tight-knit as a women’s team and staff.
“External things might disrupt stuff with how the men are doing at the minute. We just focus on what we’re doing and going to achieve. That also might be another reason why this season has gone well for us because we’ve shut everything out and focused on what’s inside.”
Ratcliffe said in a Bloomberg interview last summer that the focus on the men had prevented him from going into detail with the women’s side and has since consistently said his focus has been on the men’s team.
Asked if she would want to see or hear more from any of the club’s top-level ownership, Galton says: “It’s difficult for me to say because, from what I’ve seen and experienced, no. I would rather that be left alone because it has not been the easiest and most positive.
“But if you have someone that wanted to buy into the women’s team and help us be even more successful and have belief in us then of course, yes. But unfortunately with how things have gone it’s not really proven to me that that’s how it’s going to be.
“I know the men’s team is the priority in the sense it brings in a lot more revenue but it’s difficult when this is your whole life and someone is trying to say: ‘Oh well, we’re not too bothered about that’. You put everything you’ve got into it but then to someone else, it doesn’t really matter.
“It’s difficult, it’s not the best but that’s why as a team we definitely shut out everything and we just focus on each other because we all want to do everything we can.”
Galton agrees the group is even tighter because they have had to stick together.
“Even more so than ever this year, especially after getting kicked out of what we thought was our forever building,” she says. “We’ve done well to adapt and it just shows our qualities.”
Sunday will be the second time United have played Chelsea in an FA Cup final, having lost to them 1-0 in 2023. They were also thrashed by Chelsea 6-0 on the last day of the 2023-24 season, but their most recent 1-0 defeat in April showed they have got closer to the reigning domestic champions.
For Galton, it’s about experience, execution and also, in her words, a “bit of revenge”.
“It’s always nice to beat a team that you haven’t beaten (this season). A lot of people will be thinking: ‘Oh, Chelsea will go there and beat United’. It’s more pressure on them. They’re going for the treble so it’s trying to stop that.
“Hopefully we lift the cup again and I’ve got no broken legs.”
This article originally appeared in The Athletic.
Manchester United, Soccer, UK Women's Football
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