Player Profile: Sophie Hillyerd

The 22-year-old goalkeeper, Sophie Hillyerd, started her professional career at West Ham United. She also has 3 caps to her name for the England Women's U17 team at the Euros in 2022. At the moment, she has a contract with the English club London City Lionesses, which was signed at the beginning of the 2024/25 season.

📸 via www.londoncitylionesses.com

Sophie Hillyerd has already played minutes for a lot of clubs. She played for Bristol City from the age of 10 until 16, then she played for the U21s for Manchester United. From there, she played for Charlton Athletic and West Ham. At the age of 19, Hillyerd made her WSL debut against Arsenal while playing for West Ham.

If we go back to September 2023, Hillyerd thought she had just hurt her knee, like anyone else would, during a friendly match while playing for London City Lionesses. Two months later, in November 2023, something still seemed off, which is why Hillyerd needed to get surgery. After it still didn’t feel right in December 2023, Hillyerd needed another surgery. In January 2024, she got her second surgery. For the remainder of the 2023-2024 season, she focused completely on her rehab.

At the beginning of the 2024-2025 season, Hillyerd joined two sessions, but she still couldn’t run. Then, back in October, she went to see the surgeon again. At first, they thought an injection would help against the strange feeling she had in her knee. After the injection didn’t work, Hillyerd got her third operation, in the hope that the strange feeling would disappear. Wonderfully, the third operation went well; the surgeon and Hillyerd were both happy. Hillyerd worked so hard so she could finally make her comeback back on the pitch, but something in the back of her mind was still saying that something could always go wrong again, because it already had gone wrong two times. At the end of January, she started on the AlterG, a moment she had been waiting for during her rehab. In February 2025, she was running on the pitch again for the first time since September 2023. And in August 2025, in the pre-season game against FC Twente, she finally made her comeback on the field, after almost 2 years.