That’s roar emotion! Fans f lock to hail the Lionesses
Team salute supporters after night of partying
THEY may have been feeling a little rough, but nothing could stop their unbridled joy or tame their roar.
After partying until 4am, the Lionesses enjoyed a raucous welcome from thousands of fans in Trafalgar Square yesterday.
The England players’ celebrations had started with beers in the dressing room after their 2-1 win over Germany in the Euro women’s final at Wembley on Sunday.
Then they gatecrashed their coach Sarina Wiegman’s post-match press conference with a performance of It’s Coming Home, during which goalkeeper Mary Earps danced on the desk.
After arriving back at their hotel at 11pm, the good-natured revels carried on ... and on and on...
Little wonder then, perhaps, that many of the team opted to wear dark glasses as, with their winners’ medals round their necks and draped in Union Flags, they took to the stage at the victory event in London yesterday.
The team’s infectious sense of fun was encapsulated by Chloe Kelly, 24, surely now the owner of the world’s most famous sports bra after her shirtless celebration of her winning goal in extra time.
Her wild dancing on the stage during a singalong of Sweet Caroline was a highlight yesterday.
‘The shirt’s staying on,’ she smiled as event host Alex Scott interviewed her.
‘I ain’t stopped dancing, my feet just keep going. We had a good night but some of us were a bit worse for wear this morning.’
Fellow goalscorer Ella Toone, 22, said her lob over the German goalkeeper had felt like it took ‘about ten minutes to go in the back of the net’.
She said she didn’t know how she managed to stay composed in front of the 87,192 spectators, a record for any Euros final, men or women’s. When told by Miss Scott that England men’s captain Harry Kane was in awe of her, the crowd laughed as she cheekily replied: ‘Yeah – I taught him that.’
The team’s captain, Leah Williamson aso told fans: ‘I think we’ve partied more than we’ve actually played football in the past 24 hours.’
Speaking of her emotions when the game ended, she said: ‘Relief. We were all pretty tired.
‘This team likes to work hard but we definitely like to party harder so that’s all I was thinking about when the final whistle went. ‘The party’s not going to stop.’ Miss Williamson, 25, said the legacy of the tournament was ‘what we’ve done for women and young girls that can look up and aspire to be like us’.
‘I think England have hosted an incredible tournament and we’ve changed the game in this country and hopefully across Europe and across the world,’ she added.
‘But we said we wanted to make our legacy about winning – and that’s what we did.’
The Lionesses’ final attracted a peak television audience of 17.4million, a record for a women’s football match in the UK, according to figures released by the BBC, and the most watched programme of the year so far.