Hannah Hampton: How a goalkeeper with almost no depth perception helped England win the Euros
Overcoming the Odds: Hannah Hampton's Remarkable Journey to Goalkeeper Glory
From a childhood riddled with doubts to conquering the world of women's football, England goalkeeper Hannah Hampton defies expectations.
Hannah Hampton was never supposed to be a professional athlete. Doctors told her it wouldn't be possible, that football wasn't in her cards. This "someone like her" referred to her condition: strabismus, or eye misalignment.
Hampton underwent three surgeries by the age of three, but none fully corrected the issue. Yet, she remained unaffected. Football came naturally; she was fast on her feet and instinctively controlled the ball with both her feet. By 12, she was training at Stoke City’s centre of excellence as a goalkeeper.
Then came a surprise revelation during a routine check-up: Hampton had depth perception problems, making it challenging for her to judge distances. “I basically have no depth perception, so I can't judge any distances,” she admitted on the Fozcast podcast with former England goalkeeper Ben Foster.
This begs the question: "How does that work as a 'keeper?"
Hampton's answer? “It just does.”
Former goalkeeper-turned-coach Matt Pyzdrowski describes Hampton's story as "remarkable," considering the hurdles she faces.
"Everything you do on the field is judging distances," he explains, highlighting how crucial depth perception is for a goalkeeper. "The biggest thing is being able to judge the ball and know when you're supposed to move your hand towards it and at what angle and speed... At the very top level where she’s playing, the game is moving really fast and the players in front of her can do some really amazing things with the ball when they shoot. It’s really a remarkable story.”
Pyzdrowski believes that Hampton's condition may have inadvertently helped her develop unique coping mechanisms. He compares her situation to legendary England goalkeeper Gordon Banks, whose vision was severely impaired after a car accident in 1972.
“I’d think it would be harder having had two eyes that work for your whole life and then being limited to only one,” says Pyzdrowski. “Hannah doesn’t know anything different, and she’s obviously found a way to compensate. The brain and human body are so miraculous; she has probably just found her own way to read the flight of the ball, and it works.”
Hampton's early experiences reinforce this view. She vividly recalls countless nosebleeds and broken fingers from misjudging the ball, forcing her to adjust her positioning and hand movements.
"Trying to catch a ball is quite hard!" she admitted in an interview with the i Paper.
While Hampton navigates everyday life with caution (pouring drinks being a particular challenge), on the pitch, there's no indication of any impairment. Her former club Aston Villa wasn't concerned, and Chelsea didn't even consider it during negotiations.
But how does she do it? Sports vision specialist Dr. Daniel Laby provides crucial insights. He explains that when strabismus occurs at a young age, the brain effectively "turns off" the central vision from the misaligned eye while peripheral vision remains active. This is known as suppression. While this doesn't affect one's overall vision, it does impact binocular stereo depth perception – the ability to perceive depth based on the difference between the images seen by each eye.
Laby emphasizes that there are two types of depth perception: binocular stereo (high definition) and monocular (inferred). He uses an example of holding your fingers at different angles and closing one eye to demonstrate how monocular depth cues like overlap allow us to perceive distance with only one eye.
He argues that Hampton primarily relies on monocular cues because any ball within two or three feet of her face is too close for stereo depth perception to be effective.
"So she doesn’t really lose much by not having stereo depth perception because any ball that’s coming to her within two or three feet of her face, she's not going to have time to react to it,” says Laby. “Nobody is going to react fast enough, even if they have perfect vision, because you can’t make the motor action that fast to put your hand up to stop a ball that’s two feet away from you and moving at those speeds.”
Doctors propose surgery to straighten Hampton's eyes for cosmetic purposes only, but it would require extensive vision therapy to retrain her brain. This process carries risks like double vision and is deemed unlikely to be successful.
Hampton remains steadfast in using her story to inspire others. She aims to prove that no matter what obstacles you face, there's always hope and the potential to achieve your dreams.
"I wasn’t supposed to play and I wasn’t allowed to do certain jobs,” she told the BBC in 2021. "It was always my passion to do sport and it was my dream. I’ve always told the younger generation that if you can’t follow your own dreams, what are you going to do in life? You’ve got to follow your dreams and, sat here right now, I can say that I’ve done that.”
Tags: Hannah Hampton, England Women's National Football Team, Chelsea FC, Premier League, UEFA Women's Euro 2022