Natalie Lawrence
Natalie Lawrence
- Coach Profile
Like many sports fans, Natalie Lawrence has ‘the moment’ – a play which drew her in to football, capturing her imagination, then her heart, setting her on a path which would take her around the world.
Paul “Gazza” Gascoigne, EURO ’96 versus Scotland.
“It was an incredible goal, with an iconic celebration, and I spent hours in the garden trying to recreate it,” she recalls, smiling. Sensing a growing passion, Lawrence’s uncle took her along to Aston Villa games, and her mother helped create a team to give girls more opportunities to play. As she grew older, she would help coach younger players, but she knew a playing career wasn’t a viable option for her. “I always knew I wasn’t going to be a top-level player,” she says. “I had thought I’d go down the teaching path. I also loved travel, so maybe working with kids in some sort of holiday club in Europe.” When she had the opportunity to work at an American soccer camp for two years, it was a perfect combination of two passions. Running basic skills for 5-8 year olds was supplemented by coaching older ‘travel’ teams, and her first taste of being paid to coach football.
Football being her ticket around the world is a recurring theme of Lawrence’s career. How does a coach from the Midlands of England end up part of New Zealand’s first-ever professional women’s team, and on the coaching staff for the Football Ferns at the Olympics? It involves a group of friends travelling from England to Australia without taking a plane (a story worthy of its own profile, perhaps), and a final landing point of Wellington in 2011. Her time spent working for England’s Football Association’s Centre of Excellence, gaining coaching badges and working with top regional women and girls players was a great point of leverage in finding a role in the Kiwi capital, starting in club coach development. “I managed to meet some amazing people really early on in my time in Wellington, and they helped me get a lot of great opportunities. I was still playing for Wellington United, and was able to take up different opportunities, like coaching in National Talent Centres, working with the best kids across different regions.” These took her around the country, exposing her to different players and coaches, adding to her own coaching toolkit along the way.
An opportunity to move to Canada with the Vancouver Whitecaps presented itself, and with it, the chance to see a different part of the world. Here she was able to experience running regional excellence programmes overing performance development initiatives, working with top level players and coaches, as well as younger players emerging into the sport.
Lawrence returned to New Zealand and experienced even further advancement, including the chance to be part of New Zealand’s first professional women’s team, Wellington Phoenix. The team came to life in the COVID era, meaning their first season was spent based in Wollongong, Australia. Lawrence was Assistant Coach in the 2021-2022 season, moving into the Head Coach role the following season. It was an exciting opportunity, but a big step up for many. “The first year, we played a pre-season friendly against the reigning champions of the Women’s A League. After the first 30 minutes, we had players feeling like they’d played much longer, because the standard was so much higher. It was a moment for us all to realise this was a different level now.”
Being based overseas with no home comforts or support is a tough start for any fledgling team, but it did make for a very special moment the following season – the first professional women’s football game in New Zealand. “I will never forget that,” Lawrence says. “I think we had 5,500 people there, with the players’ families able to watch them in-person for the first time, and I had my mates there. They were all so massively proud to see us out on that field at Sky Stadium, it was so amazing.” Despite the team finishing bottom of the table in both years she was involved, and being under heavy roster restrictions for the first two seasons, Lawrence now reflects on that period as about more than just on-field results. “I strip it back to the purpose. There are players who are now three or four years into their professional career, some are still there doing really well, some have had opportunities overseas based on that exposure. We have the missing piece of the puzzle now, young Kiwi players don’t have to go overseas at 18 years old to get professional experience. Those two seasons were as tough and frustrating as they were amazing and enjoyable, the journey we went on. It’s something that I’m really proud of, being part of a game-changing experience for women’s sport in New Zealand.”
It wasn’t to be the only game-changing moment Lawrence would be a part of. It was also the era of New Zealand hosting three women’s World Cups, with cricket, rugby and football all enjoying a wave of momentum for women’s sport in this country. The Football Ferns’ incredible 1-0 win over Norway at Eden Park was played in front of a crowd of 42,137 – the biggest crowd for any football match in New Zealand. The noise when Hannah Wilkinson scored the game’s only goal is a lasting memory for anyone who was there. “I don’t think I’ll experience anything like that in my career again,” Lawrence says, having worked on opposition analysis for the campaign. “The pure joy was overwhelming, I ran onto Eden Park and did a knee slide! It was one of those moments where you stop and think ‘I was really part of that’.”
An alumna of High Performance Sport New Zealand’s Te Hāpaitanga female coach development programme, Lawrence’s involvement with the national side was fluid, coming in and out as campaign needs shifted. “There’s pros and cons to that and one advantage was my freshness,” she says. The coaching environment around the team had been through its share of upheaval and scrutiny in previous years, but Lawrence’s ‘as needed’ involvement meant she was distanced from that. “In a way, I had the benefit of ‘ignorance is bliss’, so I was able to bring what I felt the environment needed. One of my strengths as a coach is emotional intelligence, so I could read the room and be what people needed me to be, which is why I generally really enjoy being an assistant coach.”
One of the challenges for New Zealand’s representative sides is that the elite playing base is spread right across the world, with only minimal windows in the calendar to come together. “You’re bringing in people from completely different environments, playing different styles of football,” Lawrence says. “Some of them play with players who are better than ours, under coaches who may be better than us on paper. You don’t have a lot of time with the group to align all of that.” The special sauce, she feels, is tapping into the unique ‘Kiwiness’ of the environment. “There are a lot of intangible performance-enhancing factors that New Zealand has over other countries I’ve been involved with,” she says. “Stripping it right back to our purpose, what we’re trying to achieve and building a story that the players can relate to, that’s something that brings everyone back to ‘this is why we’re here, this is what it means to represent New Zealand’.”
There are many more stamps in Lawrence’s footballing passport – she was the first female to coach the Team Wellington youth men’s team in the National League; she took the Under 20 national women’s team to their World Cup in Costa Rica; and the incredible experience of being with the Football Ferns at the 2024 Paris Olympics. “That was so special,” she reflects, “going from a World Cup into an Olympics. I never thought I’d be at that level, especially for New Zealand. It was another one of those moments where, yeah, of course you want the results, but you also take the time to reflect on the scale of the moment, and how we were able to build a really great story on what it meant for this team of Kiwis to be there.”
Across all of these varied positions, working as an assistant and head coach, with different ages and skill abilities, different resources, and different genders, she’s stayed true to her coaching philosophy and values. “I know what my non-negotiables are – authenticity, loyalty, integrity, having fun and showing empathy,” she says, reflecting that Te Hāpaitanga was the genesis for their development. “To me, that underpins everything. In America, the competitive nature is at another level, but in New Zealand, the coach-athlete relationship is incredibly important. I’ve been able to take different pieces from each country and role to help me gain more clarity on what I will and won’t compromise on as a coach.”
One feature of Lawrence’s career has been a link to player development and pathways. Working with professional, age group and emerging players has given her an enjoyable variety. “Priorities are different depending on the situation,” she says. “Performance is obviously really important at the elite level, whereas for the younger players, the overall result may not be as important as working on their fitness across 90 minutes, for example. But like anything, it’s a scale. At the development end, everyone still wants results, and at the elite end, you can’t stop developing the player just because they’re a professional. It comes down to the priorities and purpose over your programme, and a good understanding of the players.” Through completing her Masters in Advanced Performance Football Coaching, she has developed a strong interest in the psychological aspects of performance sport and how that can manifest in playing environments. “Helping young players transition into a higher level of football is an area that’s not necessarily always done well,” she shares. “One of the reasons I wanted to stay in professional football is to better understand what players need to get there, because I never got there myself, so I have to think differently about it. If we can help players better transition from youth into senior football, it will have a better outcome for players and coaches.”
The transient life of a football coach has struck again. A role with Lewes FC called Lawrence back to England, where she was based in the lead up to last year’s Olympics. She has recently just accepted a role in Wales which will see her as Head Coach of the Under 17s national side, an assistant with the U19s, as well as opposition analysis for the Euros – another major tournament for her impressive CV.
The travel and pinnacle events have been highlights, for sure. But it’s still the same thing that drives Lawrence, no matter the team or colour of the jersey. “In my opinion, football is the best sport in the world. There can be a lot of politics, it has some flaws, but when you strip it all back, I got into this sport because Gazza scored a goal against Scotland, and I got to watch Aston Villa play. That pure love has got me to a place where I get to work with high performing people at the highest level.”
QUICK FIRE Q&A
Why did you get into coaching, and why did you stay in it?
Just the love of the game, I love football. And I get to travel around the world being involved in football.
Who inspires you as a coach and why?
Too many to mention. I have incredible mentors all over the world. When you see a player you’ve worked with achieve a big goal, like getting their first international cap, or they give you their shirt or something similar. That really inspires you.
What has been your biggest lesson in coaching?
Be where your feet are.
What’s been your biggest challenge?
Not comparing my journey to anyone else’s, and finding balance between ambition and burn out.
How do you want to be remembered as a coach?
That I cared for my players and put them first.