7-year-old signs for one of UK's biggest football clubs (original) (raw)
A young girl from Wales has had a dream of hers realised after signing for a huge Premier League club - despite only turning seven earlier this year. Harper Lee, from Pontypridd, has been snapped up by Aston Villa’s Girls and Womens Academy to play for the club’s under-9s team a year early.
After being invited for two separate trials earlier this year, the Premier Club club - whose men’s team beat Bayern Munich in the Champions League last week - made her an offer after telling her parents Gareth and Sam that they had “not seen anyone like her at that age”. With dreams of being a professional footballer when she grows up, the hard work starts now for Harper, who plays as a winger or a striker. It starts too for her parents, who are supporting her all the way by making sure she gets from Pontypridd to Birmingham two nights a week after school.
“We travel up every Tuesday and Thursday for training, which is near Villa Park itself in Birmingham,” said proud dad Gareth Lee. “Her school - Ysgol Garth Olwg - have been brilliant and very supportive by letting her leave a bit earlier two days a week. It’s about two hours there and two hours back because we leave before rush-hour and come back later on in the evening. Harper finds it OK - she manages to sleep in the car on the way back so it’s more of a strain on me!”
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Harper’s talent for sport was evident at a very early age. Even when she was a year and a half old she was good at throwing and catching a ball. “When she was three we noticed that she could play football,” said Gareth. “She looked more advanced than she should have been for that age and one of her nursery teachers told us that she was always playing with a football.” For the latest Welsh news delivered to your inbox sign up to our newsletter.
When she was five Harper started playing for Pontypridd United’s girls team and then got into the club’s boys academy for under 7s when she was six. She then became the first girl to be selected for Cambrian United FC’s boys academy in the Rhondda Valley and recently scored five goals in a match against Cardiff City’s academy. While her fledgling football career is going from strength to strength, Harper is something of a tennis prodigy too, representing south Wales at a sport she picked up at a local court during lockdown.
Harper signs for Aston Villa (Image: Gareth Lee)
“She tends to flip between what she wants to be when she’s older - a footballer or a tennis player - depending on what she’s played most recently!” said Gareth. “But she probably prefers football as there is a bit more variety in where we get to go and who she plays against. She’s very good at doing her school work but there’s no doubt that she wants to be a sportsperson, and we as parents want to give her every opportunity to succeed. We’re not forcing her to do anything - as long as she wants it we will give her all the support she needs.
“Aston Villa is a really good club to be around. It feels like a real family club. We’re invited to go and watch any of the WSL (Women’s Super League) games and Harper has already walked onto the pitch side by side with the women's team. They have academies and teams going up from Harper’s age now all the way through to youth level, under 21 level and then the first team. There’s even a possibility of moving up there (to Birmingham) from the age of 16 onwards.”
Proud parents Gareth and Sam with Harper and her younger brother Grayson (Image: Gareth Lee)
Harper pictured with with two trophies she won at a football camp organised by SV2, who has more than four and a half million subscribers on his YouTube channel (Image: Gareth Lee)
Harper has so far played one game for the Aston Villa academy and, naturally, she scored a goal. “Having a girl as our first child we became a bit frustrated that many clubs don’t have a pathway for young girls to play football, so to see a club like Aston Villa open up that pathway is fantastic," said Gareth. "We see woman playing football on the TV these days and we have Premier League clubs investing in women’s football from the age of seven or eight which is brilliant for girls and for us as parents.”
After a huge surge in popularity in recent years, women’s football is growing year on year and becoming a far more accessible sport for young women and girls. TV coverage of the WSL and the Wales Women’s football team - thanks to icons like Jess Fishlock - is also more popular than ever, and a few years from now there could be a new star spearheading the women’s game in Wales by the name of Harper Lee.
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