An Unlikely Love

I was tempted to skip this theme, to take a betwixtmas break from blogging, but then I thought 'You know what? I'm going to write a piece in appreciation of my favourite female footballer, Bethany Jane Mead.' Call it an unlikely love if you like.

Beth was born in Whitby but raised in the nearby village of Hinderwell in North Yorkshire. She started playing football at the age of six and it turns out she was rather good at it. "Football was my first love. It is my one true love." 

Of course, a quarter of a century ago girls' football wasn't a thing, so her only option was to play for the boys' team of her local primary school, and all credit to them for allowing it. Beth ended up being made captain, which encouraged other girls to join in. Oakridge Primary won the local area Boys' School Football Competition under her captaincy and with three other girls in the team.

Outside of school, there was the same limited choice for a football-mad girl - either don't play the game at all or find a boys' team willing to take you on. With her parents' encouragement, she signed for, trained and played with local side California Boys FC. The parents of boys in rival teams in the league used to laugh at the idea of a girl turning out for the opposition - that is until Beth Mead ran rings around their sons. Her parents instilled in their daughter that it was best to ignore the sexist comments and let her footballing ability do the talking. 

At the age of nine she was talent-spotted and enrolled into Middlesbrough FC's centre of excellence. Her mother took a second job in order to be able to cover the cost of driving her daughter the 25 miles to training and back twice a week. Beth blossomed as a striker and aged 14 scored a hat-trick for Middlesbrough Academy against Sunderland who at the time had one of the best women's football set-ups in the country, so it was no huge surprise when Sunderland came in for her as soon as she turned 16. Their manager at the time declared "She was a proper goal scorer, with either foot, from anywhere". 

In her first season for Sunderland in the Women's Premier League (WPL), Beth Mead's 23 goals in 23 games helped her team to the title, and Beth to the first of many golden boot awards. In her second season, her tally was 30 goals in 28 games and another golden boot. At this point she was still an amateur, playing for Sunderland alongside pursuing a degree in Sports Development and Psychology at Teesside University, but she signed professional forms having helped Sunderland gain promotion to the top flight, the Women's Super League (WSL), and on condition that she would be allowed to complete the final year of her degree.

Goals and success continued to flow with Sunderland. Aged 20 Beth became the youngest ever winner of the WSL golden boot and was nominated for the PFA's player of the year. In her five years at Sunderland she scored an amazing 77 goals in 78 games. It was only a matter of time before one of the elite women's clubs came in for her, and that club was Arsenal 

Beth Mead of Arsenal and England (image credit: Rachel O'Sullivan)

She signed a long-term deal with the Gunners in 2017, aged 22, and moved down south to St. Albans. Arsenal had just acquired a world class centre-forward in Vivianne Miedema (the first Netherlands player, male or female, to score 100 international goals), so the coaching staff set about turning Beth into a fast-paced and tricky winger, a progression she relished. Playing in a top WSL club allowed her to take her game to the next level.

She was soon setting records for the most assists in a season, the most chances created from open play and was part of Arsenal's WSL title-winning team in 2018-19, by which time she had also broken into the England first-team squad as a regular Lioness. She also entered into a relationship with her Arsenal team mate Daniëlle van de Donk and felt that she'd finally found her football home.

The 2021-22 season was Beth Mead's finest to date. It started off with her becoming the first woman to score a hat-trick at Wembley, this in a World Cup qualifier. She scored a second hat-trick and then four goals in further World Cup qualifying matches. In February 2022 she set up a scholarship at Teesside University to support female students looking to break into professional football while progressing academic careers. By the end of the WSL season, in which Arsenal were beaten to the title by one point on the final day, Mead had notched up 50 WSL goals and taken the all-time record for number of assists. She was named FSA Player of the Season and the UEFA Women's Euros hadn't even begun.

In that tournament, played on home soil, which the Lionesses won in July 2022 at Wembley to become the first England team to win an international competition since the men in 1966, Beth Mead scored the most goals, registered the most assists and created the most chances of any player. She won the golden boot and was named Player of the Tournament. Her 14 goals for England during the season meant she had also broken Jimmy Greaves' record that had stood since 1961. In the aftermath of the Euros, she was named by many sports writers Best Player in the World and it came as no great surprise to anyone but Beth herself that she also scooped BBC Sports Personality of the Year, the first woman footballer to ever achieve that accolade.

Beth Mead Sports Personality of the Year 2022 (image credit: BBC)

She wore the superstar tag with humility, happiest that she had made her parents proud and made all their sacrifices worthwhile in allowing her to follow her dream.

Since that summit there have been serious downs in her life, as you can read in her excellent autobiography 'Lioness: My Journey to Glory'. Her relationship with Daniëlle van de Donk faltered, her mother was diagnosed with ovarian cancer and Beth herself ruptured her ACL and was out of football for over a year. The silver lining to that long-term injury was that she was able to spend time with her mother during June's painful last months. By then she was in a new romantic relationship with strike partner Vivianne Miedema who, in a bizarre coincidence, ruptured her ACL weeks after Beth's injury. 

Such a mishap can sometimes be career-ending, but Arsenal's set up is one of the best and both women received the top quality medical and recuperative treatment required to bring them back to match fitness. In another intriguing coincidence, Beth and Viv have now become the first two players to score over 100 goals in the WSL.

Although she doesn't feel she's quite back to her best yet, nevertheless in 2025, Beth Mead (now 30) has won the UEFA Women's Champions League title with Arsenal (defeating Barcelona 1-0 in the final in Lisbon in May) and the UEFA Women's Euros with England for the second time (defeating Spain on penalties in Basel in July). She continues to be a talisman for both Arsenal and England, doing what she feels she was born to do, play football. 

Thanks for reading, S ;-)