Jonathan Morgan interview: Meet the man tasked with taking Sheffield United Women to the WSL

On the face of it, Jonathan Morgan has been pitched into a relegation battle with Sheffield United but after a decade in women’s football the club’s new manager has learned to never judge a book by its cover.

Whether that be the eight games people may choose to judge his eight-year career at Leicester City on or the colour of his skin that has seen doors remain closed for him rather than slammed in his face, Morgan knows perceptions can be deceiving.

Sheffield United Women may be second bottom of the Championship just five points above the sole relegation place, but Morgan sees a club that is upwardly mobile and one that can keep in stride with the growth of the women’s game.

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He has already built one club from the ground up, helping his father rescue Leicester City Women 10 years ago when the amateur outfit was on the verge of going under, and leaving them eight years later as a professional team in the Women’s Super League.

“We’re the type of family who puts our all in and see where it gets you,” 34-year-old Morgan tells The Yorkshire Post of the hard graft that was required of him and his father to keep his sister’s team going all those years ago.

Back then Morgan was coming to the end of a modest playing career that topped out at Hinckley United in Conference North.

But when the Leicestershire outfit went out of business, Morgan’s football journey seemed to be over and he was set to make a living out of his education as a quantity surveyor.

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Keeping Leicester City’s women afloat, though, became his calling.

Ready to make his mark: Jonathan Morgan is set to embark on the challenge of keeping Sheffield United Women in the Championship this season and then building towards the WSL. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)Ready to make his mark: Jonathan Morgan is set to embark on the challenge of keeping Sheffield United Women in the Championship this season and then building towards the WSL. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)
Ready to make his mark: Jonathan Morgan is set to embark on the challenge of keeping Sheffield United Women in the Championship this season and then building towards the WSL. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)

For the first six years that was full-time hours for barely any reward until the Premier League men’s team took the local success story back under their wing.

During the Covid-interrupted 2020-21 season, Morgan the manager took Leicester City up to the WSL as champions of the Championship - Sheffield United finished fourth that year - learning plenty about himself as a coach in the process.

“For me it was a massive learning curve, and it progressed me a lot as a manager,” he believes.

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“At first it was the access to training, access to grounds, facilities, everything.

Jonathan Morgan is announced as the new Women's team manager at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)Jonathan Morgan is announced as the new Women's team manager at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)
Jonathan Morgan is announced as the new Women's team manager at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis/Sportimage)

“We were in between three different venues, transporting kit between the three. You became much more than just a coach.”

But in an increasingly professional WSL, Leicester City lost their first eight games and Morgan was relieved of his duties.

Managers are sacked in football, that is the business, but with all he had invested in the club, Morgan was so much more than the man who picked the team.

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“I was naturally disappointed but it’s the business side of it, I understood,” he says.

Maddy Cusack of Sheffield Utd (R) celebrates scoring her first goal, Sheffield United's third during a recent FA Women's Championship match at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis / Sportimage)Maddy Cusack of Sheffield Utd (R) celebrates scoring her first goal, Sheffield United's third during a recent FA Women's Championship match at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis / Sportimage)
Maddy Cusack of Sheffield Utd (R) celebrates scoring her first goal, Sheffield United's third during a recent FA Women's Championship match at Bramall Lane, Sheffield. (Picture: Simon Bellis / Sportimage)

“Both parties were thinking it’s time to go. My thought process didn’t align with the club’s. The important thing for me was how do you progress the women’s game, while Leicester were very good at that we didn’t see eye to eye on the methodology of how to do that.

“When it came time, it wasn’t acrimonious, we’d grown in different directions.”

What grates with him, is the external impression.

“People will probably look at me and think I’m a failed WSL manager,” he says, when deep down, he he achieved so much more in his time at Leicester City.

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Morgan is not someone who likes to be pigeon-holed, which is his answer when the conversation comes round to the colour of his skin, and whether that has ever held him back.

“Overall women’s football is growing at a good pace and moving in the right direction, but I think more can be done for inclusivity and diversity within the game,” he says, when asked to gauge the acceleration of women’s football.

“You look at the top level there’s very minimal diversity. That’s something that has to change sooner rather than later.”

Of his own experiences, he classifies it as micro-regressions rather than full-blown racism. “Perception is always a big thing,” he says. “A lot of people like to paint a picture that’s not necessarily correct, or like to ignore the good that was done.

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“At Leicester, myself and my family picked up a club from scratch and took them from grassroots to the WSL, that required a lot of sacrifice and effort, there were times when I had a player working night shifts in Peterborough and I had to go and pick her up.

“People forget the good that you do, you get pigeon-holed into being a certain person through a lack of understanding of culture.

“The reality is there are much clearer barriers for people of ethnicity to get into good, prominent managerial roles than there are if you’re not ethnic in this country.

“When you look at coaches that get released that all of a sudden pop up in the FA straight away with new opportunities, I didn’t have anyone reach out to me when I left Leicester, not one person from the FA.

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“I’m sure there are white people who have had my experiences as well. But fundamentally it just seems a lot easier to discard a person of ethnicity than it is if you’re not.”

One career lifeline came last Spring, from Burnley of the third-tier FA Women’s National League.

“Burnley was the right challenge for me. I wanted to go backwards a little bit before I went forwards again. I wanted to get back my love for football. I had fallen out of love with it in the WSL,” says Morgan, who had not lost a game when Sheffield United Women came calling earlier this month.

“Straight away with Ian McCallum (Sheffield United’s head of women’s football) I could see our ethos, our philosophies were aligned,” says Morgan.

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“It was really clear that we were both on the same path. It made me realise I’m ready to get back into the more competitive side.

“Sheffield United are looking to do some really good things behind the scenes. They’re a sleeping giant starting to wake up.”

Sheffield United have been Yorkshire’s standard-bearer in women’s football for the best part of a decade.

The year before Morgan took Leicester City up to the WSL, United finished second in the Championship. Then manager Carla Ward was lured away by WSL side Birmingham City and now coaches Lionesses star Rachel Daly in her Aston Villa team.

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Neil Redfearn had three years in charge before leaving before Christmas, United having fallen behind the growing number of professional teams in the second tier.

The infrastructure is there. They train three nights a week at the same Shirecliffe headquarters as the men’s team. They play the majority of their home games at Bramall Lane.

And now in Morgan they have a man who has experience of taking teams to the top level.

“Redders did a fantastic job,” says Morgan, “but circumstances with how the league has gone dictated where they are at the minute. I think I can come in and bring a slightly different ethos to Redders that maybe gives us a kickstart to ensure we secure safety for this season and then build on it next year.

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“It’s really important that the women’s team have their own identity within a club, their own area, their own workspaces. At Burnley I didn’t even have a desk. Little things like that make you stop and think ‘where is this really going?’

“Whereas coming to Sheffield United I have my own office, we have our own staff offices, the girls have got changing rooms in the training ground. Those little things make you realise that’s where I want to be because that’s where I can bring out the best in me for the girls.”

Do Sheffield United want to go full-time? His experiences at Leicester - “I’d argue the girls weren’t ready for professionalism” - has taught him a lesson that you walk before you can run.

“The ambition is to keep improving the set-up,” he says of the United plan. “It’s not dependent on going up from the second tier. Relegation won’t help, don’t get me wrong, maintaining our Championship status is a must. If you go down a level you don’t have to be full-time because no one else is. If we stay at this level there’s the need to push towards full-time status.

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Morgan has only been with the team a week ahead of a key league game at Crystal Palace on Sunday but already he has left his players in no doubt as to what he expects of them. “One thing I said to them when I came in is you girls are probably in the hardest position in the women’s game - you’re in a competitive league part-time,” he says. “But that’s just not an excuse, that’s just the cards we’ve been dealt.”

It’s just another perception Jonathan Morgan will try to change in his time at Sheffield United.