THE WSL HAALAND

Manchester City boast this season’s deadliest strikers in the men’s and women’s top flights. Khadija ‘Bunny’ Shaw tells FFT how carrots, peri-peri chicken and lots of patience have taken her from Jamaica to a possible Golden Boot…

- Jessy Parker Humphreys

“Do you know what I really enjoy doing in England? Going to Nando’s.”

Khadija Shaw’s footballing journey has taken her halfway around the world, from her origins in Jamaica to the land of fish and chips, steak and kidney pie and bangers and mash. In the end, though, a South African chicken chain has most caught her attention since joining Manchester City in June 2021.

“I remember having a chat with [captain] Steph Houghton,” the goal-getter chuckles now. “She said, ‘Have you ever tried Nando’s?’ I was like, ‘What’s that?’ She told me I had to try it, so I went home to my uncle and told him I wanted to go to Nando’s!”

If moving to a country where some of her relatives already lived “five minutes down the road” was pretty handy, the prevalence of peri-peri chicken was quite the bonus. No such eateries – cheeky or otherwise – existed at her previous club Bordeaux. The franchise doesn’t even exist in France, nor in Jamaica.

Known to most people as ‘Bunny’ because she loved eating carrots as a child – her older brother Kentardo gave her the nickname – what Shaw soon discovered at Nando’s was a culinary revelation every bit as satisfying, fiery and marinated to perfection as her own Manchester City career. The centre-forward plundered 26 goals in the first 22 games of her second City season – a club record for a single campaign, including four in an FA Cup romp at Bristol City. By early March, her strike rate bettered men’s talisman Erling Haaland. That’s peri-peri good company to keep, eh?