"Don’t act like you know Mead, like you know Mead, na na eh!"
She’s become a household name thanks to her brilliant performances for the Lionesses this summer, but who is the Player of the Tournament winner?
Mead, 27, started playing football at the age of six in a Saturday morning session in her home village of Hinderwell, North Yorkshire. She was the only girl playing in the session at the time, and after four years she joined California Girls FC, in Middlesbrough, it having become clear that she was “too good for” the village team, as one of the coaches who ran the sessions, Philip Nedley, told The i newspaper.
Whilst playing for California Girls FC, Mead was scouted by Middlesbrough FC, joining their ‘Centre of Excellence’, and moving on to Sunderland in 2011.
It was whilst playing for the Lady Black Cats that England’s number seven first made a name for herself. In her first two seasons playing in the second tier, which was then known as the FA Women’s Premier League, Mead scored 23 goals, and then 30 in 28 games the following season, whilst also being part of the England squad that finished runners-up in the 2013 UEFA Women’s Under-19 Championship. For the 2014 season, the second tier was the new WSL 2, meaning that the team that won the division would be promoted, and the team that finished bottom of the WSL relegated. Sunderland won the division, with Mead scoring 15 goals.
At the start of the 2015 season, Mead turned professional, whilst also completing her degree in Sports Development at Teeside University. It’s fair to say she took the step up in her stride, announcing herself to the division with a goal in a 2-1 win over reigning champions Liverpool, and going onto win the golden boot, scoring 12 goals in 14 games, and winning Vauxhall England Young Player of the Year, and 2016 PFA Young Player of the Year.
Mead stayed at Sunderland for the 2016 season, the club dropping from fourth place, where they had finished the previous season, to seventh, before moving to Arsenal in January 2017. She scored once in five games, in the WSL Spring Series, a tournament designed to fill the a gap, as the league moved to a winter schedule, and upon the start of the 2017-18 season, Mead had been moved onto the wing after the arrival of Dutch striker Vivianne Miedema.
Despite playing on the wing, Mead was the Gunners’ 2017-18 top scorer and Player of the Season, as they won the FA WSL Continental Tyres Cup (League Cup), and once again won Vauxhall England Young Player of the Year. In that time, she also made her England debut, coming off the bench in a goalless draw at home to Wales.
In 2018-19, Mead broke the record for most assists in a WSL season, as Arsenal won the league. This, of course, lead to Mead being included in Phil Neville’s Lionesses squad for the 2019 SheBelieves Cup triumph, and the World Cup in France. She would start the four games at the tournament, coming off the bench once, as England suffered a 2-1 semi-final defeat against eventual champions the USA. Mead started this game on the left, and set up Ellen White’s goal.
2019-20 was a mixed bag for the Arsenal forward, she got four goals and five assists and signed a new long-term contract with the club in November 2019, before a Medial Collateral Ligament injury caused her to miss the 2020 SheBelieves Cup. And more international disappointment was on the way for Mead, as she was dropped from the England set-up by interim boss Hege Riise, and missed out on a place in the Team GB squad for the delayed Tokyo 2020 Olympics, despite another good season, in which she set up three more goals than she had done the previous campaign.
However, Mead has come back stronger than ever, telling Arseblog “The disappointment of not going to the Olympics made me step into a different gear.” This is clear from the numbers, Mead scoring eleven goals and setting up nine for Arsenal last season, whilst for England she has scored 20 goals since Sarina Wiegman took charge in September, and became the first woman to score a hat-trick for England at Wembley when she put three past Northern Ireland in October.
Of course, some of the biggest moments of Mead's career have come in the last couple of months, inspiring the Lionesses to the European Championship win, with six goals and five assists as she won Player of the Tournament. She has also been nominated for the Ballon d'Or Féminin alongside partner and fellow Arsenal forward Vivianne Miedema, and International teammates Millie Bright and Lucy Bronze, as well as finishing as runner-up to Alexia Putellas for the UEFA Player of the Year award. Although she insisted that she is "still Beth Mead" in an interview with Female First, she and many of her England teammates now have worldwide fame, and all eyes will be on them when the WSL kicks off this weekend.
Who is Beth Mead? A world class footballer and a trailblazer.
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