Chelsea Women's star set to take the Championship by storm

Chelsea’s Jorja Fox has swapped Kingsmeadow for Oakwood after completing her six-month loan deal to Charlton Athletic.

Jorja Fox playing for Chelsea away from home - Photograph by: Harriet Lander

This move means that the defender will be swapping the top tier of women’s football for the second division, also known as the Championship.

Fox was keen to make sure that temporarily jumping down a division would only have positive implications when she said: “I’ve spent a year and a half in the first team environment with Chelsea, so I’ve learned so much by being surrounded by some of the best players in the world

“It’s going to be really important for me, especially with going down a league, because it gives me the opportunity to step up and be the top player and drive the standards instead of having the standards driven for me.”

Jorja Fox taking on Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah during her debut for Chelsea vs Aston Villa - Photography by: Harriet Lander

Going on loan

A loan move was inevitable for the English full-back, who had conversations with Chelsea boss Emma Hayes when she signed her first professional contract in the summer of 2021.

Fox revealed that the plan for her first professional year at the club was to: “Stay at Chelsea for the beginning of the season and the reassess my situation and see whether it would be better for me to go out on loan.”

The defender also said that she initiated conversations about a loan move in early December with The Blues and had a few WSL teams enquire about her availability, but she decided that Charlton was the place for her.

Life for Charlton’s new star began quickly with her making her debut just three days after her arrival was announced.

Fox is confident in the squad’s ability saying: “We’ve got a really good group of girls and I think sixth in the Championship doesn’t represent the quality we have in the team.” She furthered this by saying: “Our goal is stay unbeaten for the rest of the season and move up as far as we can.”

Arguably one of the biggest achievements in her career was making the squad for last season’s Champions League Final against Barcelona. The Blues lost 4-0 but it was an unforgettable experience for someone who: “Started the season as an academy player who’d only trained with the first team a couple of times.”

The future of football

Finding a successful balance between education and football is a familiar struggle that academy footballers can resonate with; in 2018, The FA tried to combat this with a new WSL Academy programme that aimed to balance a player’s development and education. Fox revealed that the programme allowed her to complete a diploma in Sporting Excellence that ran alongside her A-Levels; the qualification was worth 64 UCAS points which meant that if players wanted to, they could go to university.

The sky really is the limit for Chelsea’s Jorja Fox. The defender has put in stellar performances whenever she’s played for The Blues; she also kept a clean sheet on her debut for The Addicks. She revealed in the next few years she would like to: “Work [her] way into the Chelsea team and get a starting spot.”

Jorja Fox is already a shining star in what is a night sky’s worth of a Chelsea team. This is not the last time you will hear her name.