Wyll Stanway

Wylliam Sam Stanway (born 21 May 2001) is an English football goalkeeper and former cricketer who currently plays for EFL League Two team Barrow. In cricket, he represented Cumbria.

Early life and cricket
Wylliam Sam Stanway was born on 21 May 2001 in Barrow-in-Furness in Cumbria. He is one of four siblings, with two brothers and an older sister, footballer Georgia Stanway.

Though the siblings all played football together growing up, Stanway played club and National Counties cricket before his football career. His father had previously made the Cumberland County Cricket Second XI in 1991, with Georgia and their younger brother also representing Cumbria's youth teams. In cricket, Wyll Stanway was an all-rounder, playing for Furness Cricket Club as well as grade cricket in Australia and representing Cumbria up to and including senior. When he was 17, he captained the under-18 Twenty20 team of Carrum Cricket Club in Melbourne. Stanway made his senior debut for Cumbria (then Cumberland) in 2019, and played for them in the NCCA Knockout Trophy and 2021 National Counties Championship. A noted batsman for Furness and other clubs, he had success as a bowler for Cumbria.

He attended the Chetwynde School and works part-time in the nuclear engineering industry as a support worker, having reduced his hours when he joined Chester.

Local leagues
Having played in some youth teams of local club Barrow's Performance Centre, Stanway and his brothers played for Holker Old Boys as teenagers; Stanway and his younger brother had stopped playing there by 2019, at which point Wyll was focused on cricket, while older brother JP was still at the club as a striker. Continuing in local football, Wyll Stanway played as an outfield centre-back until he was 19, in early 2021, when Furness Rovers needed a substitute goalkeeper. Stanway discovered this due to the manager being a friend, and offered to "stand in net for them". As a goalkeeper, he was described as a raw talent. In June 2021 he moved from Furness Rovers to Holker Old Boys, and a few months into the 2021–22 season he also signed for Lancaster City on dual registration. He made 12 appearances for Holker Old Boys and 5 for Lancaster before, in January 2022, he transferred to Chester.

Chester
He signed for Chester on a non-contract basis until the end of the 2021–22 season, making 11 league appearances. His debut for the club in February 2022 meant he had gone from step 7 football at Furness Rovers to step 2 in seven months, reported as an "incredible rise". He was not used for a period during the season, with the manager choosing a more experienced goalkeeper instead, but returned to a starting role towards the end, including keeping a clean sheet in four of the last five games. In June 2022 he signed a one-year contract for Chester. At the time, he described his good run of form as bittersweet, due to it coming at the end of a season. His progress as a goalkeeper saw him draw attention from other clubs.

In the 2022–23 season, Stanway spent time on loan at three clubs. He joined F.C. United of Manchester on 28-day loan at the end of September 2022, where he played seven games and was named player of the match twice, including on his debut. After F.C. United he went to Bootle, intended to be until the end of the season. He was recalled from Bootle by Chester at the end of November 2022 and sent instead to Macclesfield for the remainder of the season, after Macclesfield's first-choice goalkeeper suffered an injury. With Macclesfield he won the Division One West of the Northern Premier League. Robbie Savage, a board member of the club, later revealed that Macclesfield had wanted to offer Stanway a permanent deal, but could not agree terms with Chester.

Stanway was kept under contract at Chester for the 2023–24 season, being given the number 1 shirt. By the end of January 2024, he had kept 18 clean sheets for them in the season; he finished the season with 22 clean sheets, having played every minute. He was also voted as Chester's player of the season by the club's travelling fans.

Barrow
On 23 May 2024, EFL League Two side Barrow announced that they had signed Stanway to a professional two-year contract, with option for another year, for an undisclosed fee. Chester manager Calum McIntyre described the fee as "significant".

International career
In March 2024, he was called up to the England national football C team as one of two step 2 players in the squad, debuting as a substitute in a match against Wales C.