The Australian, appointed last November, usually leaves media commitments until Friday but is starting her week with a chat which is sandwiched by two meetings, the first on player availability and session design and the second with performance staff. She is speaking directly but self-effacingly in her office at the end of a corridor in a modular building at Cochrane Park, the Magpies' training base. Grace Williams, the director of women's football, works in the room opposite against the hum of coaches and backroom staff rushing in and out of adjacent doors.

Monday mornings like this are hectic, demanding, but normal. "I don't have bags under my eyes, so that's always a good start," Oxtoby jokes. 'Process' is a word she uses frequently and there is precision in her outlook, in the detail, the hows and the whys. "But you've got to build time to allow yourself to reflect on it," she says. "I think in this job you can go, go, go - you're forward-facing, and you're always, 'what's next? What's next?' But actually, take time to reflect on what you just did, because that's how you keep getting better."

This week follows an international break and is likely to be a "more chaotic" five days, with a trip to Sheffield United to come at the end of it. There is ground to cover and considerable imperative to do so at pace but she insists on taking a moment.

"It's a cognitive process that you have to do. Otherwise, in this job, you kind of miss the journey," she adds. "And you should never miss the journey."

***

This morning, like most, players are required to report to Cochrane Park by 9:30am, where breakfast is served in a repurposed upstairs dining room. The club moved to the site in October 2025, partnering with Newcastle University. There have been improvements since; a redesigned dressing room is in use for the first time today. Details have been pored over and the types of shower gel and handwash on offer have been chosen carefully.

Breakfast gives performance nutritionist Emmy Campbell a chance to speak with the players and get a read on their needs. Campbell spent three years at Sunderland after joining from Everton Women and saw contrasts in the approaches of male and female players. "Culturally, I do find it a little bit different," she says. "I think working with the women, they tend to appreciate food a little bit more, they enjoy cooking a little bit more, they enjoy the kind of culture and social element of it a little bit more, whereas the men quite often see it as something they have to do and sometimes don't have a huge interest in it."

Up to 100 meals are prepared on site daily. Campbell works with the chef, Chris Donaldson, to develop meal options each week, with carbohydrates usually central. "We'll have more or certain ones available on different days for their needs," she explains. "Then you're looking at protein intake - maximising muscle repair and adaptation through optimal protein - and then you start to add in other elements, like your unsaturated healthy fats to help with inflammation, your fruit and veg to help with antioxidants, recovery, muscle damage, that sort of thing.

"Then it's what we can add in on top, like recovery juices or shots? Do we need desserts on a matchday minus one, for example, to increase that intake? Then hydration on top of that. There's quite a few things to think about in each meal."

Players track their menstrual cycle and report symptoms through an app or in person, so she can work with them on any necessary tweaks. She sorts drinks and supplements and individualised protein shakes for gym sessions and on weeks like this, with a game at Bramall Lane to come, there are travel logistics to work out too. In busier periods, players can feel like they're constantly eating. "It's how do we get food into them, but prevent boredom with it as well - prevent it being a chore."

A good week, she says, can constitute something as simple as players expressing satisfaction. "If they've liked the food, they've eaten it, and if they've eaten it, they're well-fuelled. It's the easiest way to know you've done your job, in that sense."

***

In July 2025, Jordan Nobbs came "home" for the final act of a career spent at the top of the game, joining fellow ex-England international and close friend Demi Stokes on Tyneside. Her time in professional football has encompassed perhaps the greatest period of progress in the women's game. "It's totally changed my life," she says. "When I was younger, when Demi was younger, we didn't know where it would take us. It could have just been something we were really passionate about, but couldn't sustain."

But she was able to, and returned to the North East as a three-time Women's Super League winner with 71 caps for her country, enticed by the "ambition and focus" the club conveyed in talks. A month later, two-time World Cup winner Morgan Gautrat arrived, initially on loan, from Orlando Pride. The only "sad thing", Nobbs jokes, is that at 33, she is now one of the older players.

There is serious international quality in the United squad now but "it's easy to fit in, and be yourself. Everyone's really comfortable around us. We've got people that make you laugh, and you need that in your team - you need that enjoyment, and that fun side. We still allow everyone's personalities to come out within that. We don't want to be robots, all doing the same thing. Hopefully, the younger players see the exciting side of what's happening here."

In the 13 years Nobbs spent living in London and playing for Arsenal, she would only make it back to Sedgefield, where she grew up, for Christmas. "You do make a lot of sacrifices for football," she says, adding that she has just bought a house in the area. "It's nice to be home again."

***

Midfielder Emma Kelly is an effervescent presence in Oxtoby's dressing room. In the 3-1 Tyne-Wear derby win over Sunderland last November, she suffered a grade 3c hamstring tear soon after coming on at half time. She had only just returned from a similar injury. She takes a seat after Tuesday morning's training session and explains that maintaining her usual persona around her teammates every day was a challenge. "You know when someone asks you, and you start getting upset? I would have days like that," she admits. "But I am quite good at masking that. And I do feel like when I mask it and put on a more positive outlook, it changes my thoughts anyway."

The 29-year-old avoided major injuries for years and there is frustration that she broke down at a point when she felt she "should be reaching the peak of my career." The solitary parts of rehabilitation were at odds with her gregarious nature but helped return her to the fold, and Kelly could now feature in this month's derby against the club she played for at the start of a winding career. She completed a teacher training course while playing semi-professionally for the Black Cats, teaching PE at English Martyrs Catholic School and Sixth Form College in Hartlepool for a spell. She also spent a season with IBV on the Icelandic archipelago Vestmannaeyjar, working in a café to supplement her wages. Most of her teammates had other jobs. "The fish factory wasn't really ticking it for me," she laughs.

But with the satisfaction of life at United ("I've never been so happy in my career at a club as I am at Newcastle") comes a degree of uncertainty, Kelly explains, as Beth Lumsden and Lia Cataldo enter the players' lounge to play table tennis behind her. "If you're in a position of doing this as your full time job, I just think you've got to accept that that's going to be something you've got on your shoulder all the time. The pressure of whether the team wants to keep you, whether you get a long contract or short contract… it's part and parcel of the game."

Kelly, who grew up on Teesside, is one of a handful of local players still in the squad after the turnover of recent seasons. Lumsden, last season's Players' Player of the Season, was born in Watford but points out her mum is from Hartlepool and she spent parts of her childhood travelling to and from the region that is now her home. "And I went to Flamingo Land when I was a kid!" she says, a little less applicably. But there is tangible spirit in this diverse group.

For the last three weeks of Kelly's rehab, she was joined on the grass by centre half Deanna Cooper, who suffered a grade 2 lateral collateral ligament injury before Christmas. This is the 32-year-old's first week back in full training. Cooper joined from Reading in 2024 and views herself as a "quiet leader" in an accepting pack. "We've got some quirky people. I am obviously a slightly weird person, but I feel like I can be myself." What makes you say that? "I wouldn't say I'm like a typical footballer. I like my own space. I really enjoy my own company. I love football - probably a bit too much. I like probably slightly different things to what people my age like. I love a sci-fi film, that sort of thing, which isn't found much in women's football."

Finding comfort in that identity is a great thing. "Oh, yeah, I'm a massive weirdo. I'm one of those people who drives their car in silence. I could have a five-hour drive in my car in silence and I'd absolutely love it," she laughs. Would you not even put the radio on? "Nah. Nothing. Love it. Sound of the car, open road. Just me in my head. Perfect."

Before she was a footballer, Cooper was a cricketer. An all-rounder, she began playing in a boys' team at Rodmersham Cricket Club and progressed swiftly; she believes, at 13, she may have become Kent senior women's team’s youngest debutant. She was a teammate of Zak Crawley at Kent boys' academy and featured for England Academy. In her late teens, she chose to pursue her cricket career but a stress fracture in her back affected her bowling action and forced a rethink. At 23, she signed her first professional football contract at Chelsea.

"I do miss it. I really, really miss it. I was much, much better at cricket than I was at football, which is why I picked it originally," she adds. "Still made it pretty good with football though!"

Cooper - who netted the opener in November's derby win at St. James’ Park - has sensed a shift to a more "businesslike" vibe in her 20 months at the club. "Morgan’s won the World Cup - twice! Demi's won the Euros. The players they've brought in… it's just become crazy levels." Promotion to the Women's Super League is the aim but her experiences, and a past anterior cruciate ligament rupture, brought her clear perspective. "It could be over any minute," she says. "I've just always played and enjoyed it, and played to love it, because you just don't know when it's going to get taken away. Enjoy it while you can."

***

By 11am on this Thursday morning, gusts have reached 45mph. Spare balls are being blown onto the training pitch and rugby posts on an adjacent all-weather surface are teetering ominously. Oxtoby leads the session, with first team coach Luke Thomas-Arayo and goalkeeping coach Stephen Brass stationed near Anna Tamminen's goal. There is an intensity to the work but a camaraderie too; when Emilia Larsson cuts inside and finishes emphatically, nearby teammates take a moment to acknowledge it.

At both ends of the field, players chasing full fitness - among them American forward Simone Charley, one of four January additions - work individually with performance staff as the wind makes the heavy rain feel like hail. At the opposite end to Thomas-Arayo and Brass is Claire Ditchburn, now back in the role of assistant manager. Fluidity and change, she says, are actually among of the best aspects of the job, which currently requires her to work on out-of-possession work and shape.

In November, Ditchburn was in interim charge of the Magpies when they beat Sunderland at St. James'. "I felt extremely nervous, extremely excited - all of the heightened emotions you feel when something matters to you, and you know that it matters to so many people," recalls Ditchburn, who is from Whitley Bay. "I remember thinking what a privilege it was, because having grown up in the area, I know how much the game means to people. It felt like a real privilege to lead the team out in that context and situation."

Those nerves make you human. "I think it’s natural, isn't it?" It would be odd if you weren't. She nods. "Kind of like you're not paying attention."

In the lead-up to that contest, Ditchburn says, "our choice was to embrace it, and to almost accept that it isn't just any other game." But there is a balance to be struck between pure focus and absorbing the environment. Ditchburn was assistant at Everton when the Toffees reached the Women's FA Cup final in 2020, losing to Manchester City at Wembley. "I didn't take any of it in. Everybody tells you at the time, 'take it all in, remember it', and I just didn't. I was younger, and it just passed by as any other game would.

"So I did actually make a really conscious decision before the derby to allow myself just 30 seconds to soak it all up, because you don't know if it'll ever happen again. It isn't something that happens every day, and not everyone gets to experience it. I think you'd be doing it a disservice if you didn't appreciate it in the moment."

Back in the quiet of the players' lounge after training, Aoife Mannion thinks back to last summer. The Republic of Ireland centre back was a statement signing after leaving Manchester United, tempted by the "freshness" of the challenge in a city she'd only visited once before. She believes there is a wider context to the club's obvious immediate aim of promotion. "It's not necessarily a case of needing to hold our breath and hope that we're going to get this one opportunity for the club to step forward, and that's it, it's do or die," she says.

"But the big picture is that the club is in a really healthy place and is going in the right direction. I've been at clubs before where we, at the time, were further along, and you kind of sometimes rush the journey and forget to really enjoy it at the time. Then you get to the place you want to get to, but don't really take time to savour it and appreciate the direction things are going in."

Mannion only turned 30 last September but she assesses the club's trajectory with a calmness and broader outlook. "Maybe age gives you that. Age and experience, maybe. I don't think I'd have had that view when I was younger," she smiles. "Football's like dog years."

It is the same clarity that lets her see the shifting sands of recent years from a number of perspectives. "It's not as easy as probably people think to have that level of change around you as a player. It really does become part and parcel of being in a high-performance team, where there are different players being brought in and lots of exciting things happening in the club.

"As players, we have to stay agile and open to developing ourselves. It's quite clear that you won't be able to exist in this environment long if you're stagnant. What flew a few years ago won't necessarily fly now, because the expectation and the quality is just going up and up and up." That can come with a "stress", she adds. "But that's the name of the game. That's what attracts us to it as well."

It has been nearly a decade since Mannion signed her first professional contract with Birmingham City. In earlier days, she looked up to Karen Carney, who attended her school (she was also Jack Grealish's classmate at St. Peter’s Catholic School in Solihull). The landscape is different for young female players now. "I think it's way harder. When I was younger, because it wasn't absolutely a given you were going to be a professional footballer, everything felt like a privilege to be part of it. It wasn't that there was a massive, massive expectation. Whereas I think young players coming through now have it so much harder, because they know what could await them at the end of the rainbow.

"The stresses for young players are way, way, way more than when I was growing up. Everything can feel make or break, you can have this amazing career that wasn't really on my radar at their age. In that respect, I don't envy them."

She considers what her future might look like. She holds a UEFA A coaching license, a first class degree in Economics and has dabbled in media work, though watching or listening to herself back is rarely comfortable. "It's a very niche form of torture," she laughs. "It's a form of self-flagellation. But it's a really good way of becoming aware of little things." One day, it could be a viable profession. "I could sit and talk like this all day," she nods. But a mandatory nutritional workshop, run by Campbell and scheduled for 2:30pm, cuts the conversation short.

***

At 10:30am on Friday, as every day, the players file into a presentation room for one final analysis meeting before matchday. On the wall to the left of four rows of fold-out seats is a television displaying a leaderboard based on small-sided games in training.

Oxtoby opens by asking whether there are any objections to the rankings. Lois Joel has a query, as does Emily Murphy, who wants her friend, international teammate and current table-topper Mannion to be deducted points for some kind of infringement. "We're all so competitive, verbally," says Murphy. "We actually don't know what we win. I keep taking the ****, saying it's a trip to Disney, but I don't think anyone actually knows. But it is pride."

It is a light start to a serious meeting. On a larger screen at the front of the room, Oxtoby then talks the players through a series of slides prepared by analysts Ben Daniel and Saffron Beckley, while Thomas-Arayo and coach Peter Ramage chip in at various intervals. Some concern Sheffield United, some themselves - the build phase, attacking throw-ins, the plan for the ensuing training session - but all focus on controllables and participation from players is encouraged.

As they leave the building, players pass a club-branded poster which asks whether they are a survivor, contender, competitor or commander. Murphy feels she is the latter, a driver of standards. "Some people would say I don't shut up, and I just **** them off. I could talk to a brick wall," says the 23-year-old. There is responsibility and a need for empathy in that role though. She hopes that "if someone felt like they couldn't have an uncomfortable conversation, that I could have that conversation with them."

She grew up in Windsor but qualifies for the Republic of Ireland through her dad, who is from Dublin. Five years ago, Murphy moved to the United States, majoring in Political Science and International Affairs and minoring in Global Studies at Lake Forest University. She moved there to play football but academia drew her in. "It's funny you say that. I applied for a Master's last night," she reveals. "I've always got to be stimulated in some way, which is a blessing and a curse. I get home at two or three o'clock, and I've got nothing to do. I've a real passion for it, and if it's something I can set myself up for after my career, then I'd be foolish not to."

Some of her remaining spare time is spent, voluntarily, undertaking community work. She supports Newcastle United Foundation's Players' Pilot programme, visiting the Great North Children's Hospital at the Royal Victoria Infirmary to join in sessions and help chronically ill children enjoy inclusive physical activity with their heroes. Her engagement is not performative; she regularly texts a contact at the Foundation with her schedule and offers assistance. "It was the first thing I did that I was like, 'oh my god'. I have as much passion for this as I do for football."

A few moments before she sat down to speak, she picked up a takeaway container and filled it with leftovers from lunch. On the wall behind the buffet is an image of Murphy celebrating Shania Hayles' derby-day winner at St. James' Park a year ago. "I knee slid and it ended up being a crawl, but there you go," she says. "It's a great photo. You had to celebrate, do you know what I mean?" When the local rivals met again in November, Murphy scored twice. "I knew I was going to score. I was telling my parents that morning. I just knew it was going to happen."

Today, matchday minus one, "is a great day, because I get to carb load. But also just relax. I'll usually call my family, call my partner, speak about anything other than football. Then tomorrow, it's game day, and that's when everything focuses. If anything, I'm probably going to go and adapt my personal statement now… I like to keep busy.

"I can relax, and just sit and watch TV. But at the same time, it's nice to find things other than football. Hence why next Wednesday, I'll be going to the Children's Hospital before the Birmingham game. It gives me so much perspective if that game wasn't to go our way, for instance."

Staff meetings continue into the middle of Friday afternoon, by which time Murphy and most of her teammates have left the building. Tomorrow they play. Sometime later there'll be a pause for breath. Oxtoby has reinvigorated this team, who have lost just once in the league since her appointment, and the environment in which they work. She considers her final message to her players before matchday.

"It's more just about clarification. Has anyone got any questions? Is everyone clear on what we're doing? If you don't or you don't want to ask in front of everyone, come and see us, we're around. Rest, recover, and make sure you're ready to go.

"It's clarity in the sense of, 'are we confident in what we're going after here?' Generally speaking, it's pretty clear for them. I want them to walk off the pitch on matchday minus one knowing what we're going after. We try and keep it very much about what we do.

"They feel confident, they've done everything they can to prepare. And then game day is their day," she says. "That's nothing to do with me."

Newcastle United Women face Sunderland at the Stadium on Light on Sunday, 29th March (kick-off 2pm BST). Ticket information can be found here.