‘‘It’s just how it is and it’s not too bad – I quite like it’’

The Football Fern who’s ferry happy with her fine Finnish

Jacqui Hand didn’t fully grasp where Åland United were based when she signed to play for them last April.

But the Football Fern gets a reminder almost every other week, when she and her teammates embark on some of the more arduous and unusual away trips in world football.

Their home is the town of Mariehamn, the capital of Åland – a self-governing region of Finland that comprises a series of islands in the Baltic Sea and has historically been closer to neighbouring Sweden, leading to its special status and the adoption of Swedish as its official language.

Slightly more than 11,000 people live in Mariehamn, which is situated on Åland’s main island, home to around 27,000 people in total. Around 30,000 live across the entire archipelago, which consists of 80 inhabited islands and thousands more that aren’t. In summer, the region is a popular tourist destination, but in winter, temperatures drop below freezing.

Hand first made her way there in early 2022, initially on a shortterm deal, then for longer once plans to join an English club fell through, but the 24-year-old has since thrived there on her way to earning a dozen caps for the Ferns.

The forward represented New Zealand at the 2016 Under-17 World Cup and the 2016 and 2018 Under-20 World Cups while starring for Auckland, Eastern Suburbs and Mt Albert Grammar School, before moving to Colorado College in the United States, where she scored 18 goals in 55 matches from 2018-21.

So far at Åland United, she has netted 12 times in 22 league matches, and her club have embraced her to the point where coach Steve Beeks is arranging trainings in July so he and the team can watch the Ferns’ matches at the Fifa Women’s World Cup New Zealand is cohosting.

Before that tournament begins on July 20, there are six more rounds in Finland’s Kansallinen Liga, which features nine other teams, all based on the mainland. While Mariehamn does have an airport, flights are infrequent and expensive, so, as Beeks puts it, taking overnight ferries to the mainland and back ‘‘is the only realistic way’’ for Åland United to fulfil their fixtures.

A return trip takes around 27 hours all up, including a 10-hour overnight ferry from Mariehamn to Helsinki the night before a match and another in the opposite direction the night after.

Half the clubs in the league are based in or near the Finnish capital, but getting to others requires a further bus journey, or in some cases, an earlier ferry and an even longer trip, stretching towards 50 hours.

Hand’s first away match came in her second week at Åland and while they took some getting used to – especially with regard to sleeping overnight on the ferry – her reaction was mainly: ‘‘Wow, this is fun’’.

‘‘I’m used to it now and I just have my own routine,’’ adds Hand. ‘‘We wake up in the morning on the ferry and we eat breakfast and then depending on where the game is, we’ll either eat lunch again on the ferry or we’ll bus and stop for lunch.

‘‘I’ve been here for a year now, so I’m just kind of used to it and it’s just how it is and it’s not too bad – I quite like it.’’

Remarkably, Hand isn’t the first New Zealand international to have called the Åland Islands home. Five-cap All Whites striker Kris Bright played for IFK Mariehamn, the region’s top men’s club, in 2013, crossing paths with Beeks while he was there, and recalls it as ‘‘a pretty cool place, but so isolated. Nice people too’’.

Åland have had four away matches in the Kansallinen Liga so far this season and Hand has scored braces in two of them – first when they went to ONS, in northern Finland, at the end of April, then when they went to PK35 Helsinki last weekend. They currently sit third on the table, having scored more goals than any of their rivals as they chase a fourth league title to go with those won in 2009, 2013 and 2020.

While the relative strengths of leagues vary – and Finland’s is far from being one of Europe’s best – Hand’s 12 league goals since the start of 2022 put her behind only Hannah Wilkinson (with 13 in A-League Women in that time) among Football Ferns.

Her debut for New Zealand’s senior international team came when she was one of six uncapped players from American colleges called up for the first time by coach Jitka Klimkova´ for her first matches in charge in October 2021, with a host of regulars based in New Zealand and Australia unavailable due to Covid border restrictions.

In Hand’s third match, against South Korea that November, she scored her first – and to date only – international goal, but after playing 211 of a possible 360 minutes in 2021, she only played 170 of a possible 1080 in 2022, as untimely injuries and illness made for a frustrating year with the Ferns, even while she was making good progress at Åland.

Hand made her first international appearances for more than six months in April, playing alongside Wilkinson up top in a pair of friendlies in Turkey. While the Ferns were ultimately disappointed with a 1-1 draw against Iceland and a 3-0 loss to Nigeria, Hand’s growth and her impact in attack were among the bright spots.

Beeks has put a lot of work into helping her get ready for the once-in-a-lifetime occasion that lies ahead, going so far as to use her up front more, rather than mainly on the left flank.

‘‘To play in a World Cup in your home country – it’s a fairytale, isn’t it?’’ says Beeks.

‘‘It’s amazing and me and all of our club are so excited for Jacqui.’’

‘‘I’ve been here for a year now, so I’m just kind of used to it and it’s just how it is and it’s not too bad – I quite like it.’’

Jacqui Hand