‘Prince William’s face lit up when I walked into the room’
Lioness Beth Mead talks finding footballing fame – even among royalty – and supporting a campaign to encourage young players into the game
She became a household name as top scorer and player of the tournament in England’s historic UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 triumph. Now, nearly two years on, Lioness Beth Mead admits she still can’t quite believe her new-found fame – or the attention she gets.
“I still find it weird when people recognise me,” says Beth, 28, who was also named BBC Sports Personality of the Year in 2022 and received an MBE from the Prince of Wales in last year’s New Year Honours. “Sometimes I’m taking my dog for a walk and someone will come up for a picture and it’s just strange to me.”
But although her goals took England to dizzying new heights, Beth, who plays as a forward for Arsenal in the Women’s Super League, has endured her share of tough times since.
Four months after the Lionesses’ Euro victory, she suffered a rupture in her knee that left her on the sidelines for 11 months, causing her to miss the 2023 Women’s World Cup. By a strange coincidence, her girlfriend and fellow Arsenal player, Vivianne Miedema, was also out of action with a near-identical injury at the same time.
Beth has also been through a year of grief after losing her mother, June, to ovarian cancer in January 2023.
Here, she tells us how she is keeping her mum’s memory alive, and fills us in on her work with Mcdonald’s, creating a programme to encourage more girls to get involved with football…
Hi, Beth. You’ve had a tough year. How have you managed to cope, dealing with your grief while also recovering from injury?
It hasn’t been ideal. My break away from my personal life is football and I had that taken away from me for a very long time while I recovered. I’m very present in the moment on the pitch and very focused, so I think losing my mum has made me appreciate those moments more and live them through her.
What are you doing to remember her?
I’ve been working very closely with ovarian cancer charities and I’m hoping to get more funding to help women. It crept up on my mum and it wasn’t something she could come back from, so this is something I really want to push for. We’ve been doing the Walk In Her Name challenge to raise money for ovarian cancer research, which was to walk 100km in March. I think it’s a nice way for people who knew my mum to connect. A lot of people from back home and people she was close with did it. It’s a way of keeping her here and I know she’d be very proud of what everybody is doing.
How are you feeling now?
Touch wood, I’ve been feeling good on the pitch, but I’m still working to get to my best and I just feel that I’m really lucky to be back playing.
You were recovering together with your girlfriend Vivianne – did you support each other?
Sometimes! We had good and bad days, and it seemed the bad days fell on different days so it wasn’t ideal. We understood each other and unfortunately could both relate on those bad days because it’s such a crappy injury and we were going through the same thing. Viv is having a trickier return than me, so I’m still supporting her through that now. It’s not a nice injury. It’s hard because you’re trying to have your own emotions while helping someone else along the way. It’s tough and it wasn’t ideal. But I think, given the circumstances, we’ve done a pretty good job between the two of us. Well, we’ve not killed each other yet, so there’s that!
And you recently became dog parents! How are you getting on?
We did! We have a little dog called Myle. She’s