InterviewMissy Bo Kearns on extending LFC Women contract, setting standards and Melwood move
Missy Bo Kearns had no hesitation whatsoever when it came to extending her contract with Liverpool FC Women.
The Scouser in the team, who has been at the club since the age of eight, is a key player for Matt Beard in the middle of the pitch.
Having put pen to paper on the deal, the 22-year-old is now looking to continue her development and take on further responsibility by helping the Reds’ new arrivals settle in.
Get the No.7’s reaction as she sat down with Liverpoolfc.com to discuss the decision to commit her future to the club…
On extending her contract with the club…
The same feeling as my first-ever one – it’s a very proud moment and it shows all my hard work has been paying off. It’s a big thing to sign a professional contract for any club, never mind Liverpool, and I’m fortunate enough to keep carrying on my journey here. Football is special itself and what it brings is special experiences and special things, like signing a new contract. Those special things mean the most, like playing a match, which is what we train for every week, and then what happens during the match.
On the responsibility of playing for the club she loves…
Everyone knows I’m a Liverpool fan and I’ve been at the club since I was eight. Now I see my role as when the new players come in it’s about demanding the standards of what it is to be a Liverpool player and what we want to achieve as a club. I think I’ve been through it all since I came here at the age of eight to playing for the first team. There’s been so much change and now I can see the light at the end of the tunnel and it’s getting everyone on the same page to push, and I can see us doing things over the next few years.
On trying to set the standards for new players and young players coming through the academy…
I think social media is a massive thing now and before a player signs they probably look at social media and they’ve probably seen or heard me on that before they’ve ever met me. I’ve never lived away from home and I’ve been fortunate enough to be at a club that’s my local club. And for players like Fuka Nagano coming here from Japan, the other side of the world, it’s a completely different culture living here. So living in our culture, I’m the person in the team who can provide that. I’m a bubbly person anyway, so I love mixing. Me and Fuka are actually so similar in the way that we have a laugh and stuff, so we just bounced off each other straight away. I’ve been speaking to her while she is at the World Cup and she is texting me back, ‘Boss tha!’
On her future ambitions with Liverpool FC Women…
I want to keep performing and developing and score more goals, get more assists and help the team. We are Liverpool and we should be winning stuff, and I think every year we are closing the gap and signing new players. For me, it’s about pushing and trying to push standards. I want to try to get into the England senior squad but it all comes down to my performance on and off the pitch. That’s what my main focus is now.
I’ve proved myself in the first year, so now I’ve got to keep proving myself every year. It can’t just be a one-off season when I’ve done well. I’ve got to keep pushing, working hard and looking to develop, get better, learn and perform. As the women’s game is going now, we are playing in front of bigger stadiums and bigger crowds, so you’ve got to be able to put that aside now as that’s normal for us and make sure you perform on the big stage week in, week out.
On the pending move to Melwood as the club’s new training facility…
I think it’s massive and I’m made up because it’s five minutes away from my house! It just shows what the club is doing for the women’s team and we are going to have our own training ground, our own facilities where we will have more time to recover. We can chill out there after training and stuff, bond as a team and just little things like that can help the team be successful. The facilities are second to none, having used to be the men’s training ground. We are all made up and I think it’s what we deserve.
On pre-season training so far…
I think from day one we set a standard and it wasn’t just a case of let’s just let our legs get going again. We set a good standard on day one, so there is no going back from that. All of the new players are fitting in really well and they are enjoying it. They’ve all got smiles on their faces, except from when we are doing the running but that’s all of us!
On the ambitions as a group this season…
As a group, you always want to improve. I think in a competitive sport you never want to be where you finished last season and as a player you always want to be better, so as a team we want to be better as well. We showed what we could do last season. We had a target and we made that target. Now when we make a new target, it’s about meeting that and it will come from everything that we are doing at training and making sure we perform at the weekend.