Jordan Nobbs has set her sights on delivering Women's Super League promotion with Newcastle, describing it as the final item on her personal wishlist and a chance to restore top-flight football to the north-east of England.
The 33-year-old midfielder, who has earned 71 caps for England and was born in Stockton-on-Tees, joined Newcastle last July and has quickly identified promotion as the club's defining objective for the upcoming campaign.
"It is promotion. I know we said it last season [too]," Nobbs said. "I've always said things don't happen overnight, [but] that is our goal. You have to say it out loud."
Newcastle finished sixth in WSL2 last season, ending up 11 points adrift of champions Birmingham and nine points short of a playoff spot. Reflecting on the campaign, Nobbs pointed to a costly pattern of drawn matches as the main obstacle to a higher finish.
"Looking back on last season, we had some really good performances but nine draws, that's too many points [dropped]," she explained. "It's just about focusing on finding a way to win. We've just got to build on the good stuff from last season, I don't think we're far off it."
Newcastle have backed their promotion ambitions with significant recruitment over the summer, bringing in striker Martha Thomas from Tottenham along with Liverpool pair Leanne Kiernan and Gemma Evans, additions that signal the club's intent to challenge for a WSL spot this term.
For Nobbs, achieving promotion with a north-east club would carry special significance given her own footballing roots. She began her career at Sunderland, breaking into their first team during the old top-flight era before making the move to Arsenal when the WSL launched in 2011. Sunderland's application to join the newly formed top division was rejected at the time, a decision that broke up a promising squad that also featured future England internationals Lucy Bronze and Lucy Staniforth.
Sunderland did eventually spend three seasons in the WSL between 2015 and 2018, but since then representation from the region at the top level of the women's game has been limited. Nobbs welcomed recent investment in the area, including at Newcastle's WSL2 rivals, who were taken over by Bay Collective in June.
"It's been a long time coming, but it was something us northerners have always wanted," Nobbs said. "We don't want the north-east to fizzle out. We want to show the players that have come from there and developed there."
She added that the region's football landscape was moving in a positive direction, but stressed that promotion for Newcastle would represent the crucial next step. "It's definitely grown in the right direction now, which is what we wanted. But the big stepping stone would be getting into the WSL. That would be where we really put the north-east back on the map and I'd love to be a part of that."
On a personal level, Nobbs has relished her role under head coach Tanya Oxtoby at Newcastle since arriving from Aston Villa last summer. She has been deployed in a more advanced position than she was used to at Villa, allowing her to contribute more directly in attack.
"With Villa I played a lot of a deeper role and [now] I really love being back in my high position, scoring goals, assisting and [I'm] in my happy place," Nobbs said. "I feel like I found that little spark again [last season] that was nice."
With fresh signings bolstering the squad and Nobbs rediscovering her attacking form, Newcastle will hope this season finally delivers the promotion that has eluded them, and returns a north-east club to the WSL for the first time since Sunderland's departure in 2018.
Based on reporting from Guardian Football.