Nat Johnson fights Covid by day and plays for Sheffield United Women by night

Yet her day job is something that the Sheffield United Women’s defender accepts is far more important than merely chasing a dream.

For Johnson, 26, is a biomedical sciences student who works 40-hour weeks at a private hospital in her home city of Leicester, processing Covid-19 samples.

“We are processing maybe a hundred a day,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Especially this second wave, it’s just madness, non-stop.

“The sheer volume is the frightening thing. Luckily for me I’m not patient-facing but it’s the sheer number of tests coming through that is the scary thing.”

Three nights a week, she changes out of her lab uniform, puts on her football kit and heads north to train with her fellow part-time team-mates at Sheffield United.

“Football, in my head, is my main job,” she says, “but the importance of the other job does take over.

“On the drive up it gives me chance to get a coffee on board to think about what I’ve done that day and what I need to do and then go again.

“It’s a long day but it’s quite nice. I’m doing all three sessions with United so by the end of the week I’m pretty knackered.”

So when does she get time to study for her degree? “Late nights; Mondays and Fridays, whenever I get a spare minute I’m squeezing it in,” says Johnson.

That she is hostage to a busy life is self-inflicted, because while the day job is of vital importance in a time of crisis, the football is the dream that she can still turn into a reality.

Johnson has chased professional football since her teenage years, going to university in South Carolina on a four-year scholarship because she thought that might be as close to the pro game as she would get, given the importance placed on the women’s collegiate game.

But four years removed from that, she took the decision last summer to leave her home-town club of Leicester to try and further her career with United.

“I had to ask myself a lot of questions in the summer; what do I really want from football?” says the defender, who has also been capped by Northern Ireland. “It would have been easy to play more locally, maybe drop down the divisions.

“But I knew what Sheffield United were about and it was somewhere I really wanted to play football. I knew it was going to be hard, but I hoped it would be worth it and so far it’s paying dividends.”

If United, who are currently third, 10 points shy of Leicester in the sole promotion spot, ever got to the Women’s Superleague their players would have to turn professional, forcing Johnson into another life choice.

“I ask myself this question nearly every day, it’s very much a head and a heart question. I’ve worked a lot of years to get where I am career-wise, but football-wise I’ve worked even longer. Becoming a professional footballer is something I’ve always wanted so I would be a fool to let the opportunity pass by.”

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