Beth Mead

Bethany Jane Mead (born 9 May 1995) is an English professional footballer who plays as a forward for the Women's Super League (WSL) club Arsenal and the England national team.

A creative and prolific forward, she has all-time most assists and all-time second-most goal contributions in the WSL.

Joint with Vivianne Miedema, she is the first player to reach a combined total of 100 goals and assists in the WSL.

At UEFA Women's Euro 2022, she became the Golden Boot winner, Player of the Tournament, and top assist provider, leading England to win a major tournament for the first time.

Later that year, she was named BBC Sports Personality of the Year, becoming the first women's footballer to win the prestigious award; and finished runner-up for the Ballon d'Or and UEFA Player of the Year.

In 2015, Mead won the WSL Golden Boot and the WSL Player of the Year award, becoming the youngest WSL Golden Boot winner at the age of 20.

It was only a season after leading her then-club Sunderland's promotion and WSL 2 title win.

Having scored 77 goals in 78 games, she is regarded as one of the greatest players ever played for Sunderland.

Converted to a winger at Arsenal, Mead holds numerous WSL records in playmaking, including all-time most assists, most assists in a season, most chances created in a season, and most chances created from open play in a season.

She was the WSL top assist provider in the 2018–19 and 2021–22 seasons.

In the 2021–22 season, she was nominated for WSL Player of the Season.

She won the 2018–19 WSL title with Arsenal.

Mead helped England reach the semi-final at the 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup, providing second-most assists in the tournament.

In 2022, she broke Jimmy Greaves' 61-year-old record of the most goals scored in a season by an England player of either gender and was named BBC Women's Footballer of the Year and World Soccer World Player of the Year.

She was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2023 New Year Honours for her services to football.

Mead and her alma mater Teesside University launched the Beth Mead Scholarship in February 2022.

Her Sunday Times bestseller autobiography, Lioness: My Journey to Glory, was published in November 2022.

Mead grew up in Hinderwell, a small village near Whitby, which she described as: "a fishing town in the middle of nowhere, with a population of about 2,000. [The] sort of place where the people are outnumbered by sheep. You know the type: loads of fields, two pubs, a hairdresser and about a mile away from the local shop."

Mead started playing football when she was six years old.

Her mother wanted her to run off her boundless energy and took her to a Saturday morning football session on a village field in Hinderwell, which was run by a volunteer coach.

He said to her and her mother, "It's fine that you're coming down to get involved but you will be the only girl here. They are quite rough so will she be ok?"

Her mother replied, "She'll be fine."

But when her mother came back an hour later, he said Mead was rougher than most of the boys.

She played with the local boys on that bobbly community field as much as possible, regardless of which animals were on it or how long the grass was.

Mead took part in many sports, including cross-country running, netball, cricket, and field hockey, but "football always hit [her] different."

She said: "I loved what I was doing on the pitch and had no other worry in the world — nothing else mattered except me kicking that football. Football is my first love; my one true love. It still breaks my heart sometimes, but that's part and parcel of the game. That's still my way of switching off now: just running around on a football pitch and loving what I'm doing. That's never changed, from the six-year-old kid to the 27-year-old who's running around now."

One day, Mead's local senior cricket team was one short.

She joined in for the day and caught two balls from her brother's bowling.

The local newspaper called it 'The Mead Show'.

Mead went to Oakridge Community Primary School in Hinderwell.

There was no girls' football team at school, so she played for the boys' team.

She was the only girl.

However, the more she played, the more other girls wanted to join in.

She was captain of the primary school team, and that made the other girls feel more comfortable, seeing she had been accepted and made captain.

They won the local primary school cup for boys' teams with four girls in the team.

Mead began her youth career at California Boys FC and Middlesbrough centre of excellence at age nine.

During her time playing for Middlesbrough academy, her mother picked up a second job to help cover the cost of petrol required for the twice-a-week 45-minute drive.

When Mead was playing at California Boys FC in the boys' league, the other team's players and parents would laugh when they saw her turn up because she was a girl.

Her teammates used to tell the other team to laugh ahead of kick-off because they knew that as soon as the game started, she would be running rings around them.

She minded neither because her dad told her, "While some people will always have opinions, and you would hear a few things, you don't need to say anything, and neither do I–your football will do the talking."