Jody Handley

Jody Handley (born March 12, 1979) is an English football player. She is a pacy player, and plays mainly as a wide midfielder for England Women, and as a striker for Everton Ladies. Began her career at Shrewsbury ladies before moving on to Wolves Woman in the middle of season 1993/94. Making nine appearances she scored 5 goals to help Wolves take the Premier North title. In her first season in the national league she made 16 appearances and scored 2 goals including the opening goal in Wolves first National league win against Millwall. The rest of Wolves season did not go so well and they were relegated after one season.

Jody returned to the top flight when she signed for Liverpool in December 2004 to make a return the National League and an appearance in te FA Cup final. After a scholarship in the USA Jody returned to Liverpool. She went on to play for Doncaster Belles in season 2001-02 and went on play in her second FA Cup final this time against Fulham. Despite getting on the score sheet however had to make do with a runners up medal as Fulham ran away with a 2-1 win.

Jody's performances at club level led to international call ups and she got her first goal against in a 2-2 draw against Russia in Moscow in October 2003. She was on the score sheet in a 5-0 whitewash of Mexico in the 2005 Algarve Cup and was also involved in the World Cup qualifying campaingn bagging a goal in the record 13-0 win against Hungary on route to China 2007. She played in the finals themselves coming on for the last ten minutes of England's second game against Argentina, a 6-0 win which all but guaranteed a place in the quater-finals.

Jody returned to Everton in the 2004-05 season and went on to score in the FA Cup Semi-final win against Arsenal, however she was to be disappointed once again after a 1-0 loss to Charlton Athletic in 2005 final. In the 2007/2008 season Jody was named club Everton captain through the absence of Leanne Duffy. Taking them to their first silverware in over a decade with a 1-0 win against Arsenal in the Premier League Cup final.

2008/09 season seemed to be full of promise but it got off to a bad start when she suffered a bad injury during the Umbro pre-season tournement. She is recovering however and hopes to return in plenty of time for the league run in.

External links

* [http://www.thefa.com/Womens/EnglandSenior/PlayersAndCoaches/Postings/2005/05/JodyHandley_profile Jody Handley] at the FA website

References

* [http://www.thefa.com/womens The English FA Women's Football website]
* [http://www.evertonfc.com Everton FC official website]
* [http://www.femalesoccer.net/wB_show_page?wB_page=wB_sports_team&wB_sports_team=everton_ladies FemaleSoccer.net's section on Everton Ladies]