Life as a Wag in the transfer window
“Owen was on the phone to the manager and his agent while I was in labour. They waited for me to give birth and then he went out on loan pretty much as soon as I was out of hospital.”
Owen Dale’s loan deal wasn’t to a local club, but to Portsmouth - a city more than 200 miles away. His partner, Jessica Beaumont, had never even been there.
And the pair had only just got the keys to a house they had bought. They would end up staying in it for just one night.
“Since living together, we’ve moved five times in five years,” says Jessica.
“You have to be prepared for anything in the transfer window. But it’s also a really fortunate position to be in at a young age.”
This period - when clubs are permitted to buy, sell and loan players - takes place twice a year, in January and during the summer, for clubs in the Premier League, the English Football League (EFL) and the Women’s Super League (WSL).
While a select few stay in one place throughout their career, for most players moving from club to club is just part of life in the modern game.
Jessica met Owen when he was at Crewe Alexandra. A move to Blackpool soon followed.
“I didn’t get together with him because he was a footballer so I never considered the footballer life - that he might just have to move at the last minute,” she says. “We just met and we clicked.”
But it soon became apparent that dealing with almost constant uncertainty would be part of that life.
The move to Blackpool was a loan, with an option to buy, so for six months - during which Jessica was pregnant with their son Xavier - they did not know whether he would be staying there or heading back to Crewe.
Blackpool decided to sign Owen, but he was soon out on loan again. This isn’t uncommon, with loan deals a way for clubs to help young prospects gain first-team experience and get regular playing time elsewhere.
“When the move to Portsmouth happened it really hit me - I had to quickly realise that ‘OK this is now my life’,” says Jessica.
Just before Owen’s loan deal to Portsmouth the couple had bought their first house together in Congleton - a town close to Jessica’s family in Stoke on Trent, and commutable to Blackpool.
“We spent one night in there - we hadn’t even unpacked,” she says.
They decided a 10-hour round trip on Owen’s day off in the week to see his newborn son was not an option.
“We thought ‘if he’s not playing well because he’s tired, what’s the point in doing this’?” says Jessica, who adds that they ended up renting out the Congleton house and have been living in rented accommodation themselves ever since.
She also had to quit her job.
“I was finishing my law degree and had a job at the time - I had to say to them I wouldn’t be coming back from maternity leave,” she says.
Post-natal complications also made it difficult for her to travel at the time.
“I had Owen on the phone basically saying, ‘I’ve done a couple of house viewings. I’ve chosen this one. This is where we’re going to be living’ and showing me on FaceTime,” she recalls.
“In that moment I did feel really out of control.”
Uprooting her life at short notice and leaving her family behind was challenging and Jessica remembers spending a lot of time alone in Portsmouth when Owen was at away games.
But she remembers lots of positives from that time too, including when she became friends with another player’s partner.
“I was so fortunate that she would often stay with me when Owen was away,” she says.
“I say to her all the time that I’ll appreciate that time forever because I was just so isolated. Our schedules were the same - when Owen went away her partner was also away - I didn’t have to be fully alone and she got it.”
Owen, now 27, has played most of his career in League One, with two stints in the Championship when he was with Blackpool and Oxford United.
Last season was spent on loan at Plymouth Argyle and he is currently a free agent - this means he is not tied to any club by a legal contract. Owen can now join a new team without a transfer fee because no former employer owns his registration rights.
Many of his moves have been on deadline day and he says he is “very aware of the sacrifices” his family make.
“There’s always the risk that a move might not work,” he says. “So I might uproot my whole family for this next venture and it all goes south. Over the years I’ve learned that until there’s a contract signed on the dotted line, you could end up anywhere.”
For now, Jessica’s career in law is on hold, she instead has a job in social media and works from home.
She also posts about her experiences on TikTok, regularly using #wag and #waglife.
“My career can be picked up at any time - whereas his career is right now and you’ve really got to take every opportunity,” she says.
“As much as people say it’s a glamorous lifestyle you do make sacrifices so your partner can have their dream and get themselves as far as they can in football. At the end of the day, as much as I’m involved, it’s his career. That means in order for me to support him properly I can’t get emotionally involved.”
This includes not getting too emotionally attached to where they live.
“We usually rent newer houses that are a blank canvas so we can make them our own, although this last season the accommodation was provided furnished by Argyle,” she says. “We put a lot of Xavier’s toys and garden stuff in storage and referred to our Plymouth accommodation as ‘the holiday house’. It can be hard when he asks us to get things like his trampoline which we don’t have with us.”
“When Owen was at Oxford he had one year left on his contract and I loved it there,” she says. “But the best thing was for him to go and get game time somewhere miles away. So we moved.”
While Premier League footballers can earn tens of thousands of pounds a week - sometimes hundreds of thousands - life in the lower leagues can be very different.
“When you think ‘Wag’ [players’ wives and girlfriends] and you think ‘footballer’, both of those terms come with this stereotype that our lives are easy,” Jessica says. “People also put League One players in the same bracket as Premier League players. In the Premier League they’re often set up for life - we can’t live in that way because we have to prepare for life after football.”
Adding to the uncertainty of where they will be playing is also the possibility of relegation or injury.
“When we were at Portsmouth, Blackpool was still his parent club and they got relegated,” says Jessica. “Owen wasn’t even involved that season, but his wage was still affected. You have to be prepared for everything. You just can’t live outside of your means. But it’s still a really fortunate position to be in. Luckily, Owen’s been good with injuries. There are some players who get injured in the last month of the season and they’re out of contract. In football things can be really positive or really negative.”
The uncertainty also affects their children - four-year-old Xavier and two-month-old Etta.
“Now that Xavier is growing up - he’s fast approaching school age - another thing that will have to be added into the mix is his stability,” says Jessica.
Even normal things like organising his recent fourth birthday party aren’t always straightforward.
“We couldn’t plan to have a party in Plymouth with balloons and cakes etc because we didn’t know if we were going to be there,” she says. “Instead we planned a party near my family in Stoke-on-Trent - we needed to make something work regardless of what happens with Owen’s job.”
“As much as I worry about Xavier and Etta, I also think how amazing it’s going to be for them when they’re older to be able to tell their life story and say they’ve lived in all these different places. I think it’s teaching them a good life lesson that they don’t need to be tied to one place.”
She says they have made every move a positive experience.
“We’ve said to Xavier that we might be moving soon and when we do we’re going to get his bike back out of storage,” says Jessica. “That way he knows that moving is a possibility and hopefully he’s not thinking about what he’s going to lose but what he’s going to gain.”
“The fortunate thing for us is that Xavier loves football. He gets a lot of excitement as well from the new strips and the new chants and all of that kind of thing.”
So, does Jessica have any tips for people in a similar situation?
“The main thing for me personally - and what I’ve learned first hand - is the importance of keeping your own identity outside of football,” she says. “If you get too wrapped up in it, it only puts more pressure on your partner. If you can get a hobby, a routine or even a work-from-home job, that can help - things that can move with you.”
Being sensible financially is also important.
“I’d also say that if you have a season where you get promoted, try not to change your lifestyle and to bank the promotion money so that you have as much stability as you can,” she adds.
“In our house, I de-clutter maybe once a month,” she says. “This helps me because I don’t have control over Owen’s career. But what I do have control over is making sure that if and when anything does happen, the house is ready to be packed up and moved. When it’s the transfer window I will plan in one-week blocks - that gives me that little bit of certainty in a situation where I have no control.”
She admits “it can be hard” but “on the flip side it’s so exciting”.
“We’ve lived in places that we never would have lived in. And that’s exciting for a relationship,” she adds. “You know, with some relationships you can get bored. In football, you don’t get bored!”
