Former Stoke City youth teamer Hannah Hampton has been branded a cheat for deploying the dark arts to help England be crowned champions of Europe
08:00, 24 Aug 2025
Peter Smith
Peter has reported on Stoke City for The Sentinel and StokeonTrentLive since 2013, following the club in the Premier League, Championship and beyond, including trips to Singapore, Germany, France, Croatia and Switzerland. He has been watching Stoke since 1990.
Walsall keeper Sam Hornby's notes on his water bottle ahead of a Carabao Cup shoot-out against Stoke City. It went untouched by Stoke keeper Jack Bonham.
Walsall keeper Sam Hornby's notes on his water bottle ahead of a Carabao Cup shoot-out against Stoke City. It went untouched by Stoke keeper Jack Bonham.(Image: Ben Roberts Photo/Getty Images)
Hannah Hampton and her family made sure not to forget her grounding at Stoke City when she played a key role in helping England win Euro 2025.
It was Hampton who was encouraged by Andy Frost, now Stoke’s head of academy recruitment, to hang her hat on becoming a goalkeeper after a star turn initially filling in during an emergency for the Potters’ under-12s team at Liverpool. She still remembers and is grateful for his support and advice, and speaks fondly of her time at the club.
So we’ll always have a soft spot for the 24-year-old who beat the odds – it’s baffling that someone with no depth perception can be such a good goalkeeper – to become the hero and we’ll always probably judge her through red and white tinted spectacles.
It irked that she has been called a cheat in The Times this week by sports commentator Matthew Syed. Almost a month after England were crowned champions via a shoot-out win over Spain, Syed has blasted Hampton for throwing the opposition keeper’s water bottle guide to England’s penalty takers into the stands.
“We pretend not to notice the outrage in Spain that a key player was deprived of the water bottle (in fact, a receptacle containing liquids crucial to rehydration) at a key moment in the match,” he wrote.
“We don’t reflect upon how we would have felt had the tables been turned; if a Spanish ‘keeper had taken the bottle of Hampton, together with the notes carefully drafted after hours of preparation and analysis, and launched it into the stands. We pretend not to notice that Cata Coll (the Spanish goalkeeper) will probably never have her property returned.
“(Manager, Sarina) Wiegman should publicly call out Hampton’s action for what it was: cheating.”
It’s true that no one likes cheating and that’s why there are laws of the game and referees.
But there is a major difference between cheating and gamesmanship, even if the line between the two might sometimes be thin. Robert Huth was one of the masters of walking that line.
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The dark arts are an important and entertaining part of the game, from a keeper who calls on a physio in the dying minutes at 1-0 up to ball boys who give their own player a towel to wipe the ball for a long throw but can’t find it when the opposition ask for similar treatment. It’s why most away changing rooms are smaller and less luxurious than home changing rooms.
There have been plenty of conversations over the last eight or nine years about wishing Stoke had players who were more willing to push boundaries.
“There are not many top athletes who don’t go as far to the line as possible,” said Ryan Shawcross back in one of his columns for us. “For me as a player, and for Stoke as a team, I felt that’s what we had to do, and when we were successful we were good at it.”
So around here there’s probably the same level of sympathy for a keeper who leaves her notes unattended as there would be for a gormless defender who tries to pass across his own penalty area with a striker lurking.
Everyone is always trying to get the better of each other through skill, wit or otherwise. Watch out for the opposition, look out for your team-mate and make sure that players like Huth or Hampton are on your team.
*We should mention here that Danny Alcock, the Stoke-supporting keeper coach from Tean, was a pioneer of keeper notes on water bottles. He was working at Nottingham Forest when Brice Samba famously used the guide in a Championship play-off shoot-out win.
And for what it's worth, Coll claims that it wasn't her bottle that Hampton launched into the stand. Still, the thought was there.
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