Nat Johnson fights Covid by day and plays for Sheffield United Women by night

Yet her day job is something that the Sheffield United Women’s defender accepts is far more important than merely chasing a dream.

For Johnson, 26, is a biomedical sciences student who works 40-hour weeks at a private hospital in her home city of Leicester, processing Covid-19 samples.

“We are processing maybe a hundred a day,” she says, matter-of-factly. “Especially this second wave, it’s just madness, non-stop.

“The sheer volume is the frightening thing. Luckily for me I’m not patient-facing but it’s the sheer number of tests coming through that is the scary thing.”

Three nights a week, she changes out of her lab uniform, puts on her football kit and heads north to train with her fellow part-time team-mates at Sheffield United.

“Football, in my head, is my main job,” she says, “but the importance of the other job does take over.

“On the drive up it gives me chance to get a coffee on board to think about what I’ve done that day and what I need to do and then go again.

“It’s a long day but it’s quite nice. I’m doing all three sessions with United so by the end of the week I’m pretty knackered.”

So when does she get time to study for her degree? “Late nights; Mondays and Fridays, whenever I get a spare minute I’m squeezing it in,” says Johnson.

That she is hostage to a busy life is self-inflicted, because while the day job is of vital importance in a time of crisis, the football is the dream that she can still turn into a reality.

Johnson has chased professional football since her teenage years, going to university in South Carolina on a four-year scholarship because she thought that might be as close to the pro game as she would get, given the importance placed on the women’s collegiate game.