When Becky Langley noticed her own face on a flag in the stands, her immediate reaction was to search for her mother. Caught between two emotions, she found herself torn between raw sentiment and the need to maintain focus. Reflecting on the incident, she recalls, “The players noticed it before I did. They saw it while waiting in the tunnel as I was exiting the changing room. They exclaimed, ‘Have you seen your flag?!’ In my mind, I was thinking, ‘Oh my god,’ but I replied, ‘Focus on yourselves! Please don’t let that distract you!'” She chuckles and adds, “But yeah, it was fantastic.”
Langley serves as the head coach of Newcastle United Women and is one of the prominent female figures in sports in the North East. During their 3-0 victory against Wolves at Kingston Park in February, she experienced a sense of quiet pride when she observed the Wor Flags display. However, amidst her busy thoughts, she also felt a touch of guilt, thinking about all the other staff members who contributed to the team’s success. The transition to being a full-time professional club necessitates juggling numerous responsibilities, impacting not only her role but also extending beyond the confines of her job.
She reflects, “I almost need to remind myself of who Becky Langley, the football manager, is, and who ‘Becky’ is. How are they different, or are they the same? I strive to be genuine—I am pretty much the same in both roles, or at least very similar. However, since I manage people here, I need to be more direct. I wouldn’t adopt the same approach at home.”
Now 28 years old, Langley finds herself in a different coaching environment compared to when she first joined Newcastle on a part-time basis alongside her position at Northumbria University in 2019. Time is a precious commodity, and that is unlikely to change. She remarks, “You have to make a conscious effort to switch off. On my days off, I spend time alone or take my dog for a walk on the beach in Tynemouth or Cresswell. I try to find the right moment to turn off my phone or carve out some headspace that football cannot intrude upon.”
When asked about what brings her happiness, she is tempted to respond simply with “winning.” However, Langley acknowledges the importance of not becoming too fixated on victory. She notes, “One of the things I’ve discussed at length with our club sports psychologist, Ian Mitchell, is not becoming overly enamored with winning. If you constantly romanticize about winning, experiencing a defeat can lead to a significant low. That, in turn, can have a lingering effect, potentially impacting the next game. It’s crucial to be mindful of that.”
She continues, admitting with a chuckle, “It drives you to win, and naturally, we haven’t lost many games, so in that sense, it’s great. However, you can’t derive your entire happiness from winning or losing football matches. But yeah… what makes me happy?” she ponders, before answering, “Winning. That’s really bad, isn’t it?”
Undoubtedly, many would disagree. Langley’s team currently sits nine points clear at the top of the FA Women’s National League Northern Premier Division with six games remaining. They strive for consecutive promotions, having clinched the Division One North title last season. Additionally, they have a National League Cup final to look forward to this month. The team has set attendance records at St. James’ Park and has attracted a new demographic of supporters who may not have otherwise engaged with women’s football. Langley has played a pivotal role in these achievements.
“It’s simply overwhelming. I think that’s the best way to describe it,” she expresses. “It’s beneficial for young girls in the North East to have female role models, whether it’s the players wearing the black and white kit on the pitch or myself as a female manager in the dugout. I believe it’s truly important.”
On a dreary Wednesday after training, Newcastle United Women find themselves dividing their time between Bullocksteads, where they train, and Kingston Park, the home of the Newcastle Falcons rugby union team. They gather at Kingston Park to meet, eat, analyze, and prepare for their games, which are also held there.
Becky Langley, born in Middlesbrough, sits in one of the executive boxes at Kingston Park, overlooking the stadium’s artificial pitch. Her parents, Jim and Jane, both police officers, had a passion for football, although they didn’t play or coach. Her sister, Emma, works as an economic advisor at the Treasury and has no interest in the sport that Becky ended up playing at the Middlesbrough Girls’ Centre of Excellence.
Langley believes her first taste of coaching occurred around the age of 14 on the field at Conyers School. She humbly admits, “I wouldn’t have had a clue. I would have just been placing a few cones down and thinking, ‘What would I enjoy if I were playing?'” At 15, she started running a session for her teachers on Fridays, realizing that she quite enjoyed coaching. During her teenage years, she began taking coaching badges while pursuing a sports science degree at Loughborough University.
While studying, she played for Derby County and coached alongside her academic commitments. She also spent a year as an unpaid full-time sports science intern at Nottingham Forest, working with the club’s under-18 and under-23 men’s teams. Langley fondly remembers her interactions with players such as Matty Cash, Ben Brereton Diaz, and Ryan Yates. She would chat with them in the mornings about her own games or women’s matches that had been televised the previous night. The internship led to part-time work at foundation and youth development levels at the City Ground, offering Langley valuable insights into the men’s game and its environment.
However, securing a full-time role in football proved challenging despite her experience at Forest. In her final year, her dissertation focused on the lack of women coaches in women’s football. “I was 20 or 21 when that was written, nearly ten years ago now,” Langley reflects. “We’re still asking the same question, and they were probably asking the same question 20 years before that as well.” What conclusions did she draw at the time? “There were lots of reasons. Confidence was a big thing. Having a smaller pool to pick from in the first place due to a lack of provision. And it being, again, quite a male-dominated environment.” As part of her thesis, she interviewed Shelly Kerr, a pioneering former Scotland international who became the manager of the Lowland League men’s side Stirling University in 2014. “She was probably one of my first female coaching heroes.”
Langley went on to become the head of women’s football at Nottingham University and worked for Physiolab Technologies for two years, combining her sports science background with business and sales. She even traveled to Australia to support Team England and assist them in using her company’s equipment at the 2018 Commonwealth Games. Juggling her evening work at Forest with her other responsibilities proved challenging. Langley recalls, “I would coach from 7 am to 9 am. Then I would quickly change out of my tracksuit, take a shower, put on my regular work clothes, and work from nine to five at my job at Physiolab. At six, I would put my tracksuit back on and go coach at Forest until nine. It was quite an unhealthy lifestyle, I have to say, but it allowed me to make ends meet with those three jobs and learn a lot in a short amount of time.”
In 2019, a job opportunity arose at Northumbria University for the position of head of women’s football, which provided Becky Langley with a chance to be closer to home. As part of the role, she would spend eight to ten hours a week managing Newcastle United Women as part of a partnership with the Newcastle United Foundation, the charity under whose banner the team operated. The players and staff, apart from Langley, were essentially volunteers with other jobs who would gather at the club’s academy twice a week for evening training sessions, which Langley jokingly referred to as “the graveyard shift.” They were advised not to arrive until 7 pm, after everyone else had left, and had to ensure they were gone by half-past nine. Matches were played at Druid Park, often following children’s rugby games that had taken place earlier in the day. Langley noticed the basic conditions, with Fruit Shoots and other items left in the dugouts, and the changing rooms in need of refurbishment. Players would eat chips and have a pint after the match, giving Langley a strong sense that the entire setup needed to be professionalized. However, everyone was playing for free or, in some cases, paying to play. Some players had to find sponsors who would pay £300 or more for the season, while a few players who couldn’t secure sponsors paid via direct debit every month just to be able to play.
The sponsorship money barely covered the necessary equipment. Langley’s mother and sister would collect small change at the gates of Druid Park. Although it feels like a long time ago, Langley emphasizes that this was less than four years ago. She had the belief that, regardless of the resources, the team could still win. Langley wasn’t thinking, “I really hope one day the club puts money into this.” Instead, she believed that even if they had to operate on a shoestring budget, they could still be good enough to win by bringing in the right people and developing the right culture within the club. Over the years, they recruited effectively.
Langley brought in players she knew from Northumbria, such as Georgia Gibson and Katie Barker, while also making changes to the squad. Gradually, a team spirit was forged during long journeys to and from matches on a Foundation minibus, with balls, cones, and boots squeezed under seats and in footwells. Sometimes, Langley and others who played for both Northumbria and Newcastle would have two games in one day at different locations.
After achieving promotion from the FA Women’s National League Division One North in 2023, a restructuring took place, bringing the women’s team under the ownership of the club for the first time. This led to a crossroads for the team, with players being released and recruited amidst uncertainty about whether Langley’s side would become a full-time professional team. Offers, one full-time and one part-time, were made to potential recruits before it was confirmed in June the following year that the team would become full-time professionals. The stakes were high, as some players had to take career breaks to pursue football. Langley mentions the example of Georgia Gibson, a key player in their title-winning team who also worked as a PE teacher at Newcastle School for Girls. Gibson signed a one-year professional contract with the club in the summer, and Langley wants her to stay beyond this season. However, she is aware that football often provides less job security compared to other professions.
