Not many players can stake a claim to having played in the variety of climates which encompass West Yorkshire, County Durham, South London - and Miami - but Palace forward Molly-Mae Sharpe's remarkable journey has seen her achieve precisely that.
Here, Sharpe recounts her story...
This article was first published in the Palace v Liverpool match programme, and has been republished as part of Palace's celebrations of women at the heart of the club.
I’m originally from Bradford, where I grew up. I started out at my local village team, Thackley Juniors, and then I went to Leeds United’s academy for a year when I was about nine or ten. I then played for Bradford City Women’s team from the age of 12, and made my way into the first-team at 16.
I support Bradford, and when I was young, I used to go all the games. I had a season ticket there, and still support them to this day – although it can be quite painful!
I started out as a midfielder and played there up until the age of 16. When I broke into first-team football at Bradford, I got moved up to striker, and I’ve played there ever since.
It wasn’t really my decision, to be honest! I liked playing in midfield but my coach, in training, just said: “You’re good at scoring goals and we need someone up-front – will you do it?” and I’ve never looked back really!
I loved Sue Smith growing up. She was just the ultimate player, really. She was the one who actually scouted me for Leeds, so I got to meet her, which was amazing. I also loved watching Kelly Smith.
It’s really funny in my family, because my Mum has no idea about football – she doesn’t have a clue. She just saw that I liked it and was willing to take me around everywhere, but she never liked it or enjoyed watching football, except when I was playing. She supported me loads.
My family came and watched me, but it was really my Mum who drove me from one end of the country to the other to give me the opportunity to play.
My friends thought it was really cool. It was around the time people’s opinion was starting to change about Women’s football, so they just thought it was amazing that I played, and would come and watch me. I always played with them in the playground after school and stuff, which was nice.
My first year breaking into the Bradford City team, I scored a hat-trick in the final of the West Riding County Cup Cup against Leeds, and that was a big stepping stone for me. Scoring a hat-trick in a final is obviously amazing, and winning a Cup is too. Being so young as well, being surrounded by women… that was a great experience for me.
I was really nervous at first because I was playing for the Under-17s and then they told me they wanted me to come and train with the first-team, totally missing out the Reserves. I was like “Oh my gosh, that’s such a big step,” but my coach was amazing. He was a really nice guy.
He said, “just come and train – we won’t put any pressure on you to play, it’s just we’ve heard good things.” In my mind, it was a massive step up, but the girls made me feel really comfortable and they made it really easy to make that jump.
Because I support Bradford, it was massive for me, putting on the shirt. The girls really got behind me, even though I was really young. It was a great experience.
It had always been in the back of my mind to move to the United States ever since I was young. When I went into secondary school, I heard about the colleges out there. I put a video of myself online playing, and universities started getting in touch with me, offering scholarships.
When I started researching it and seeing how much they take care of you, and how much they treat you like a professional, I knew it would be for me – and the weather in England just wasn’t doing it for me, so I needed to go somewhere a bit sunnier!
It was a massive decision. Like I mentioned, my Mum always supported me, but it was just me and her at home, so it was difficult letting her only child move to Miami!
She knew that it would be a great life decision for me and it was an amazing opportunity that I just couldn’t pass up really; to get a full scholarship and go to university in America was amazing, and my family supported me one hundred percent.
They took good care of me out there. The girls out there were really nice to me. There were a couple of other English girls too who made me feel more at home, but I just think it was where I was meant to be at that time. I settled in really easily.
Obviously I was at Miami’s Barry University, in a sunny environment, and with the weather, there was lots of things to do, so I never felt homesick at any time. I got to train every day, play football every day… I just think it was for me where I needed to be at that time, and I easily transitioned from being in England to living out there, to be honest.
I studied for a university degree in Sport & Exercise Science for four years out there, alongside playing. It was perfect. I won Offensive Player of the Year in my last year too – that was a great achievement, and we did quite well as a team as well.
After my four years in America, at that time, I was 22. It’s difficult in America, because you either play in the top league, or you can’t really play professionally. It’s changing now, but back then, it was that one league or nothing.
I knew I wanted to carry on playing professionally. Durham Women offered me the chance to play in the Women’s Championship and complete a Master’s degree at the same time with a scholarship.
I wanted to continue my education, so I thought it was a perfect opportunity to carry on studying, get my Masters (in Education – I changed it up a little bit!), and play in the Championship at the same time.
Obviously Durham is only about an hour-and-a-half away from Bradford too, so I was able to go home and see family and friends, which was really nice after being away for four years!
My best memory with Durham will have been coming second in the Championship in 20/21. We had a great season. We wanted to get promoted, but I got joint-top scorer that year, and it was great jumping straight into the Championship, scoring goals and playing every week.
I'd always admired Palace. Playing against them in the Championship, they were always a very difficult team to play against, and London’s always appealed to me with lots going on.
The club that Palace is, being in the community, I really just thought it was the place for me to be. I came in the summer of 2021, and then stayed again this season.
I love it here in London. It’s obviously expensive, but it’s worth it. There’s always something going on or something to do – I really enjoy it.
It’s a process for us as a team at the minute. We’re building every week and every training session, we’re getting better.
The fans that come and watch us carry us every week – they’re brilliant. They travel up and down the country to support us and we appreciate them so much. Seeing them at our games gets us all buzzing, to be honest.
We’ve just got to carry on with the process and carry on improving every week. We want to finish as high as we can in the league. It would be a bonus if we could break into the top three or four this season – that would be amazing – so from now on, we’ve just got to take every game as it comes, and win every game from hereon out.
