Amidst the inevitable muddle of books and puzzles you’ll find in any home that a toddler inhabits, an artwork on an easel portrays six beaming, beautiful faces. It’s a large-scale painting of all of the grandchildren that Katrina Gorry’s mum, Linda, has so far.
Australian soccer star Katrina’s daughter, Harper – now almost as iconic a Matilda as her mum – is instantly recognisable in the bottom left. The work has been enchantingly rendered by Katrina’s fiancée, former Swedish soccer player Clara Markstedt, from photos.
As perfect as it looks, “it’s a work in progress,” says Katrina, smiling towards her fiancée’s baby bump. (Clara’s seven months pregnant when we meet, but the couple has since welcomed son Koby into the world.) “It will need updating when our son arrives.”
The couple announced their engagement in June last year, after meeting in 2022 in Sweden, where they both played for Vittsjö GIK. Clara had helped Katrina to settle in when she transferred to the team as a single mother with a six-month-old in tow. In November 2023, they revealed that Clara – whom Harper calls “Ra-Ra” – was pregnant. Their baby boy is the result of one of the embryos from Katrina’s previous IVF journey.
In 2021 Katrina walked into a clinic in Norway – where she was signed to Avaldsnes – to start the IVF process while injured. “I flew home to Australia shortly after the embryo had been transferred,” she says. “I was wondering whether I should order a quarantine drink to celebrate being back home, but then thought, hmm, maybe I shouldn’t do that.”
Instead, Katrina spent her COVID quarantine period doing pregnancy tests, with the ‘positive’ lines more distinct each time. The pregnancy was confirmed by blood tests – and by feeling constantly sick.
Katrina’s sense of family and its importance is palpable in everything she says and does, which makes it all the more remarkable and indicative of her single-mindedness that she didn’t consult her mother before commencing IVF. Nevertheless, when her pregnancy was confirmed, she put a box together for her mum and dad. It contained her IVF papers, her positive pregnancy test, some booties that said ‘I love Grandma and Grandad’ and a onesie emblazoned with ‘Mama’s Mini’.
Some confusion ensued. “My dad thought I was starting a cafe called ‘Mama’s Mini’,” says Katrina. “And my mum was asking ‘who’s pregnant?’ Everyone else was like, ‘well, who gave you the box?’”
Once the light dawned, their support could not have been stronger, with Linda travelling with her daughter to allow her to start playing soccer again just three months after Harper’s birth. The bond between
Katrina and her mum is obvious. It’s in the ease of their exchanges; the nurturing way Linda and her partner, David, fetch food and drinks. It’s also clear in the warmth between them and Clara, and their obvious delight in Harper – and Harper’s in “Nonna and DD”, as the two-year-old calls them.
Seeing this unconditional love in action, it’s not hard to understand why Katrina always felt that motherhood was essential to her happiness. Indeed, when asked who her biggest role model is, Katrina answers: “My mum has always inspired me – since I was a kid and still now. The love she has for everyone she meets, but most of all for us kids, the kindness she shares and just the person she is. She always shows up for all of us, and what she does amazes me every day.”
Despite the comparative ease with which Katrina became pregnant, Harper’s birth was lengthy and painful. With her typical optimism, Katrina recalls that “my obstetrician was incredible and said they had faith in my ability to deliver Harper myself – which I did. It was the coolest thing. Even though I felt really weak, we had loads of skin to skin contact and she started feeding well immediately. I’d done a hypnobirthing course and even though it didn’t go how I’d envisioned, it was still incredible in its own way. I mean, I had to spend seven days in hospital and for me, that was the best thing ever. Just me and Harper.”
Katrina hasn’t always been able to be so upbeat, however. She’s been candid about her mental health struggles, which sometimes left the midfielder feeling unable to get out of bed and “like I didn’t want to do life anymore”. A reminder of her journey to recovery is tattooed around her right thigh: “We don’t see things as they are; we see things as we are.”
As she sits
on her sofa stroking her dog Rio – named after
the 2016 Olympics
where Katrina’s missed penalty contributed to the Matildas’ defeat in the quarter-finals – she recalls this dark period.
“I think the Olympics affected me more than I admitted at the time,”
she says. Her mental health began to suffer the following year, alongside “falling out of love with soccer”.
Adding to the emotional pressure, back in Australia there was a personal family issue unfolding which she was unable to be on hand to help with.
“I’m so close to my family and I felt so helpless, so far away,” she says, the emotion raw in her voice. “I think that because I felt so out of control of the situation I had this need to exercise some sort of control over something.”
As her passion for soccer waned, that thing became food, and Katrina, who’d never previously had a problem with body image or diet, found herself obsessively counting calories.
“It very quickly gets ingrained into your thought processes,” she says. “Suddenly I found myself going for days without food, and then I’d binge and feel awful. I was in a very dark place. I don’t know how I was still managing to train. When I look back at photos of that time, you can tell something’s wrong. I look vacant.”
Were her coaches and teammates aware that there was an issue?
“Probably,” she admits, “but I think it was more widespread throughout the team than anyone acknowledged. We’d have our weigh-in before breakfast and you’d hear people around the table saying, ‘I’ve gained a kilo; I’m cutting out carbs.’ It’s infectious, especially when you’re also comparing yourself to other athletes on social media.”
Katrina suspects that people often shy away from asking the hard questions because they don’t really want to hear the responses.
“It’s not enough to just say ‘hey, how’s it going?’” she says. “You have to be willing to genuinely ask: ‘Is there something going on with you?’ Or: ‘You don’t seem yourself, is there something you want to talk about?’ And then you have to be prepared to listen to the answers, as uncomfortable as those answers might be.”
Thanks to her strong ties with family and friends, Katrina was eventually able to open up about her demons. She also credits her psychologist, who “just had a way of peeling back the layers and getting me to talk about things that I didn’t want to acknowledge. But without a doubt the most important thing for me was having people in my life who listened without judgement.”
This is a role that Katrina feels privileged to play now – one where she can help to create a safe space for young soccer players who are “exposed to so much. So many advantages and so much opportunity – it’s a blessing but it also requires support and stability, and I feel grateful to be in a position to provide that to the next generation of soccer players coming through.”
She’s also honoured to support Lifeline Australia through The Push-Up Challenge this year, completing 3249 push-ups across 24 days.
She credits motherhood, as well as her own past struggles, with teaching her greater empathy. “I’ve always been a good team player but having Harper has made me a more nurturing person,” she says.
Unsurprisingly, she’s proud to be a role model. “Not just for soccer players or athletes,” she points out. “I hope that my journey with Harper is an example to all women, that you can and should be able to have a career as well as being a mother.”
She’s also pragmatic about the Matildas’ 2023 World Cup disappointment. “Yes, we would have loved to have medalled,” she says, “but in the end, I think that what we achieved as a team and as individuals – and what we achieved for the profile of the sport – was even greater.”
Since the beginning of the year, Katrina, Clara, Harper and their dog, Rio, have been living in East London, with Katrina signed to West Ham. Their home overflows with love. Romantic messages on the kitchen blackboard, artworks by Harper, plus more sophisticated ones by Clara are just a few of the markers of a happy household. There’s also a 3D scan of the baby next to a countdown of how many weeks until they meet him.
“I can’t imagine ever being in that dark place again,” says Katrina. “When I had Harper it was like everything just lifted; it all just went away. My love for the game returned; I held Harper in my arms and promised her that I’d get back out there for her.”
Inevitably, that first World Cup 2023 game – her first back with the national team – was a career highlight. “Being on the pitch, singing the national anthem, seeing the support – not only from young girls but also young boys – the crowds in the stadium, knowing that Harper was there with my mum … it was an incredible feeling,” she beams.
Yet even though her love of soccer has been reignited, “I absolutely loved being pregnant and can’t wait to do it again,” she says. The couple’s plan (“although we’ll see how we go with two!”) is for Clara to undergo IVF so that Katrina can carry an embryo formed of Clara’s egg and the same donor sperm used for Harper and her baby brother.
Although soccer is what brought Katrina and Clara together, just a few minutes in their company makes it apparent that this is a love story transcending sport or even commonality of interest.
“I was happy to be on my own, a single mum with Harper,” says Katrina. “I wasn’t looking for a relationship – it just happened very organically.”
“I’d always envisioned myself having kids, but it never felt like something that would be happening soon,” says Clara. “Meeting Katrina and seeing what an incredible mother she already was … I felt safe with her. There are no battles; we discuss everything and we’re a great team. My own parents divorced when I was very young, so I’ve treated my parenting of Harper as a slow process. I’d never want to overstep.”
A busy time lies ahead for the couple, with their baby boy, Koby, born on June 9, and their wedding set to take place on Hamilton Island next year. The Olympics, meanwhile, are just around the corner.
“I’m feeling positive about it,” says Katrina of the steady recovery she’s made from an ankle injury she sustained in a game against Chelsea in March. “I know that I can get back up to fitness: As an athlete, I love pushing myself.” Her selection in June for the Matildas’ Olympic team proved just how determined she can be.
Given that her own mum was a netballer and encouraged Katrina to take up the sport (at practice, Katrina kicked the netball and proclaimed the game “boring”), is a future in soccer on the cards for Harper?
“Both of her mums are soccer players, so perhaps she’ll take an interest,” acknowledges Katrina, “but I won’t be pushing her. I just want her to have some kind of active outlet that she loves.
“It’s so important – it gets you out of the house, you make friends, you become a part of something bigger than yourself. I’ve gained and learnt so much from sport and I’d love that for our children, too.”
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