‘I had sleepless nights over the moment my toe cost us a shot at a World Cup final we believed we would win’
Ellen White’s six-goal haul – and her unusual celebration – means she now gets recognised in the street, but the striker tells Molly Mcelwee how she is still coming to terms with England’s devastating exit
‘So many people tell me they loved every minute, the passion in women’s football, got swept up in it, and that is all amazing. But we should have beaten the US and gone on to lift the trophy’
One picture sums up England’s summer at this year’s World Cup: Ellen White, hands cupped around her eyes in the shape of binoculars, in what became her signature goal celebration. It was one she went on to deploy six times over.
White became the poster girl for England. The Lionesses’ record goalscorer at the tournament, national newspapers plastered her face across the front and back pages as she competed with the United States’ Megan Rapinoe and Alex Morgan for the feted Golden Boot.
But for all the joy and glory of those moments, life-changing as they were, White’s memories of France are seen through a different lens. The “overriding thing” on her mind, as she puts it: “I really wanted to win it.” Speaking at her new club Manchester City’s training ground, in her first interview since England’s semi-final exit, she is still not over the emotions of the World Cup. White struck England’s only goal in the 2-1 semi-final loss to the US, but she admits that she thinks more often about her disallowed equaliser later in the game. Goal celebration barely completed and in the throes of believing she had rescued her team from the brink of disaster, a video assistant referee review found White’s toe had edged a whisker offside. Captain Steph Houghton would later miss a penalty won by White, putting the final nail in England’s dying hopes.
“I had sleepless nights,” White, 30, says earnestly. “Thinking about what I could have done, if my toe couldn’t have been offside. It’s just all those things constantly going through your head. It was devastating, it felt like a failure because we literally believed we were going to win the World Cup.
“I know so many people come up to me now and say they loved every minute, they loved the passion in women’s
football, got swept up in the World Cup, and that’s amazing. But there’s still that little bit where I think we should have beaten the US and we should have gone on to win it. I still think about it now, the America game, how we could have beaten them. But you’ve got to move on and focus on the here and now.”
In the here and now, White has moved her life from Nottingham to Manchester for a new beginning. Leaving Birmingham City after two seasons, she was snapped up by City back in May in the club’s bid to replace England team-mate Nikita Parris, who had departed for Lyon. White says having a deal secured with one of the country’s leading sides ahead of the World Cup contributed to the freedom she felt on the pitch in France.
“The fact that such a big club wanted me definitely gave me a lot of confidence. I didn’t have to focus on, ‘I have to play really well because I really need a club.’ It was all done and dusted, I was settled, my family was settled. I was really relaxed and calm.”
City only missed out on the treble last season after losing the Women’s Super League title race to Arsenal, and the allure of Champions League football – as well as joining a side with a “like-minded winning mentality” – was an attractive offer.
“It blew my mind when I first came here,” she says, gesturing outside to the pristine City Football Academy training grounds. “I’ve been at Arsenal and different clubs, but these are the best facilities I’ve ever seen.
“I had a really good conversation with Nick [Cushing, the manager], and it felt like the right environment for me. I know quite a lot of City players from England and they’ve spoken really highly about the environment, the culture and also the coaching.
“Developing as a player is really important to me, and even as I’m getting a little bit older I still want to learn. I also wanted to be at a club pushing for trophies and leagues, being around a like-minded winning mentality.” In the weeks following England’s exit in Lyon, White spent her downtime on the sofa, binge-watching Love Island and
Grey’s Anatomy, before joining up with her City team-mates to refocus. “Reflecting on it over the past couple of months, I think we can be really proud of what we achieved. It felt like the whole nation was jumping on board. I had quite a few people saying that to pick between Coronation Street and women’s football they’d pick women’s football and I was like, ‘Right, we’ve made it.’”
A record 28.1million watched the World Cup, so no wonder White is often recognised in the street. “I have people stop me and do the celebration,” she says, “grown adults do it to me in the street, it’s crazy.”
Inspired by FC Koln’s Anthony Modeste’s late winner over Dortmund in the Bundesliga, which she and her husband Callum watched in Cologne four years ago, White could not have predicted her copycat version of the Frenchman’s celebration would take hold in the way it did. Scoring six goals over five matches on the world stage will do that. All the more incredible then that, by her own admission, White had “no expectations” going into the tournament.
league’s first Manchester derby. As a proven big-game player, missing out is a sticking point for White. But she hopes that the expected 23,000-strong Etihad crowd will see an overflow of World Cup interest take hold in the WSL. And when she returns to the pitch – which she says will be in the next couple of months – will we see her nowfamous goggles when that first City goal comes?
“It’s quite nice having a celebration that’s yours – even though I know it’s [Modeste’s] as well. But maybe I’ll do something different this season.”
Glance at White’s career trajectory and it has been a little up and down. Arsenal and Chelsea in her youth; then Leeds, a cruciate injury and a funding crisis at the club; a return to Arsenal proved fruitful, winning the inaugural WSL and a domestic double, before signing for Notts County – who controversially folded two days before the start of the 2017 season. Players were left jobless and homeless, though White was quickly picked up by Birmingham, where she excelled. Moving to smaller set-ups among the bigger-name clubs, she says, aided her development. Leeds taught her resilience after suffering the first of her two ACL injuries, while Notts County handed her a first professional contract – something Arsenal could not – so she could give up her full-time job. At Birmingham, coach Marc Skinner nurtured her game.
Not that she needed it for goalscoring. White has always been a natural. Aged 10, she scored 109 goals in a season for Aylesbury Town – before being unceremoniously told that she was too old to play in the mixed league the following year; she was top scorer for Chelsea for the three seasons she spent there as a teenager; and in the 2017-18 WSL season, she was the league’s top scorer with 15 goals and named Player of the Season. That she was top scorer at the World Cup was no burst-on-to-the-scene moment. But to do it under such pressure showed a whole new level of composure.
It is White to whom fans will look to light up Manchester City’s season. First, though, she needs to get through rehab, having undergone knee surgery last month for a cartilage tear picked up in pre-season. She and England goalkeeper Karen Bardsley will be glaring absences in the side’s opening WSL fixture at the Etihad tomorrow in the