McManus admits her career change would have preferably come at a later age than 30, were it not for some wretched luck, after an awkward landing while competing for the ball during Leicester’s League Cup win against Sunderland in early 2023 left her with a serious leg fracture. “I tried for a while at come back to full fitness but after speaking to the surgeons I was told I couldn’t play professional football anymore,” she recalls. “That was a bitter pill to swallow but thankfully I can still walk and run. After I had the bad news I had a decision to make. I decided to visit some local fire stations. I researched, I asked some questions, I applied, and I got in”
As those who follow her on Instagram might already be aware, Abbie’s unique post-football story gets even more interesting when another ex-Red is introduced into the mix: Jess Sigsworth, the ex-striker who holds the United Women record for most goals scored in a single campaign (18, in 2018/19).
“Obviously Jess and I played at United and Leicester together, and I remember we openly had a conversation at United years ago, saying, ‘We’ll join the fire service one day!’ as it’s something we were both interested in. So a while after I got in, I spoke to Jess privately. She said she’d had enough of football and could I help her. She asked me questions and I explained the routine, how it was quite like being a footballer – you go in, have breakfast together, train, have lunch, service your kit… similar to what we’d do as players. Even working night shifts, I told her it’s like an away day – that’s how I relate it anyway, doing our drills and spending the night here [in the station].”
While Abbie is based in Rochdale when on duty, and Jess is 15 miles along the M62 in Farnworth, the former team-mates did end up working together one night, with the events of that shift providing a glimpse of the myriad challenges firefighters must deal with.
“How it works is that if someone rings in sick you might have different calls, and I got sent to her station in Farnworth. We turned out to a job together where a deer was stuck in somebody’s railing. It was night so the deer hadn’t seen the railing, had tried to run through it, and its hips got stuck. Thankfully, we managed to free the deer, and it ran off into the distance happy. We do turn up for some mad things!”
With Abbie and Jess leading the way, who knows, maybe other ex-footballers will follow suit? Especially when you consider the opportunity to kick a ball with your co-workers remains. “Jess and I still play,” says Abbie, who no doubt holds back on some of the tackles she was so good at while playing competitively. “The team is going to Spain in April, where they’ll play the police, the army… so there’s still football as a part of being a firefighter. The service is supportive of it.”
