“Chaotic, carnage, brilliant, hard.”

That is how Remi Allen sums up her first season as manager of the Southampton women’s team. The 34-year-old is seven months into her new role, having taken over from Marieanne Spacey-Cale in the summer.

This is her second senior coaching position, having abruptly ended a 16-year playing career last March to take charge of London City Lionesses — another side in the WSL Championship, the second tier of the women’s game in England. With her contract expiring after the season ended in May — the London club appointed former Paris Saint-Germain manager Jocelyn Precheur the following month — Allen made the move from the capital to the south coast.

“It’s been a baptism of fire, getting thrown straight into it with recruitment, players, getting the group to understand the way I play, getting the culture right,” says Allen, speaking to The Athletic from her office at Southampton’s training ground.

“Everyone sees you as a player. Then , you are a coach in the Championship. But there was a lot of groundwork that went into that. I’ve done (coaching at) every age group, I’ve worked with under-21s, I’ve worked with England Under-23s as an assistant coach. I’ve done my badges.

“I was constantly — as a player, even when I was young — looking at the coaching side of things. Every manager I’ve worked with, I’ve either stolen stuff from or gone, ‘I wouldn’t do it like that.’ So I’ve been building a repertoire of how I would like to do things.

“The best coaches steal. They would be lying if they said they don’t. I’m definitely not the finished article. I’ve got loads to do and loads to learn, but I’ve also banked a lot of knowledge along the way. That is something I’m keen to get across because I feel like some people might think it has been a quick transition. It’s been graft.”

Allen comes from a generation of female footballers who turned to coaching at a young age as a way to supplement their income because they were playing in semi-professional environments. It is a pathway that differs from that of their male counterparts, many of whom might only begin to think about studying for their coaching badges as retirement from playing the game looms.

In Allen’s case, she was encouraged to start doing her badges when she was 16 by her then manager at Leicester City, Rehanne Skinner, who is now in charge at West Ham United of the top-flight WSL.

“When I first started with my first contract at a football club, I was doing (coaching) because I needed additional finances,” Allen says. “I quickly found out that I really enjoyed it. Sometimes I didn’t enjoy the late nights on a freezing-cold pitch, but that’s where you learn your trade. 

“It has benefited me. I see my playing journey as a way of learning to be a coach and I’m really grateful for that.”

Allen has not only been immersed in coaching throughout her playing career. It is also central to her home life.

Last June, she married Carly Davies, who manages Nottingham Forest’s women’s team in the domestic third tier. “My wife has been a coach for 20-something years, so coaching has been in my life, every single day.”

Do they try to avoid bringing work home?

“We always say that, but it’s b****y impossible,” laughs Allen. “We have points where we go, ‘Enough is enough’. We’re quite good at balancing each other out because days are stressful. Sometimes it might be I’ve had a stinker, I come home stressed and she’s like, ‘OK, let’s put football away’. And vice versa.”

Forest are currently top of the Women’s National League Northern Premier division, meaning they are on course to be promoted to the Championship. With Southampton safely mid-table, that would set up the possibility of two marital derby matches next season.

“I’m not going to lie, I never thought we’d be in this position,” Allen says. “She’s obviously competing to come up to the Championship — and I’m going to sound biased when I say this — but she’s an incredible manager. I’ve learned so much from her.

“You challenge each other and you can bounce ideas off each other. I wouldn’t recommend it in a marriage! No, I’m joking. We’re still finding our feet, it’s obviously quite new. It helps that I’m away a lot, too.”

Allen and Davies are just two up-and-coming female coaches, but there are concerns about the number of women securing opportunities to coach in the professional game. At the start of this Women’s Super League season, only four of the division’s 12 managers were women. That has now risen to six as a result of changes in the dugouts at Arsenal and Aston Villa. One rung down in the Championship, five of the 11 managers are women.

“There are so many top women coaches around,” adds Allen. “The challenge is the clubs. It’s the best person for the job, male or female, in my opinion. But there are top-quality women coaches who get overlooked for, potentially, a male or someone that’s come out of a different league, whereas we have got (homegrown female) coaches who can deliver.

“I feel strongly about this, because I can think of so many coaches right now who are not in a job and who are female who could do a bloody good job in the Championship or WSL.

“I hope women continue to prove clubs wrong and bash down the narrative, because they are out there. It’s something we are forever going to fight and there are so many women that are going to continue to rise to the challenge.”

This article originally appeared in The Athletic.

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