European champion, golden boot winner, best-selling writer – it’s been some yr for Beth Mead.
On Wednesday she may add BBC Sports activities Character of the 12 months to that checklist of achievements. Mead, who can be the primary feminine footballer to win the award, is the overwhelming favorite with odds of 1/80 – deservedly so.
Mead lit up Euro 2022, main the Lionesses to their first ever worldwide trophy with six objectives in six video games. Her performances additionally earned her the participant of the event award.
Beth Mead is the runaway favorite to win BBC Sports activities Character of the 12 months on Wednesday
She was the participant of the event and high scorer through the Lionesses’ Euro 2022 triumph
These achievements are much more spectacular given Mead needed to bounce again from the crushing disappointment of being neglected of the Group GB squad for the Tokyo Olympics.
The damage Mead felt from that call led to what’s now fondly generally known as her ‘revenge tour’.
However whereas 2022 will go down as among the best years of Mead’s life, it has not been with out struggles.
Her mom, June, has been out and in of hospital as she continues to battle most cancers. In November, Mead ruptured her ACL, placing her World Cup hopes unsure. Her accomplice and Arsenal team-mate Vivianne Miedema suffered the identical harm simply weeks later.
Mead bounced again in fashion after being neglected of the Group GB squad for the Tokyo Olympics
Whereas the Euros success introduced Mead extra alternatives in sponsorship, it has additionally added extra consideration to her private life.
Mead’s household hail from a small village in Whitby. Throughout the Euros there have been issues over the eye her family had been receiving and being within the highlight continues to be one thing the ahead and her Lionesses team-mates are adapting to.
The rise in publicity and demand from the general public is one thing England boss Sarina Wiegman spoke about this week. ‘Inside six weeks they grew to become well-known English folks, everybody needs one thing from them,’ Wiegman mentioned.
‘Your brains should get used to your new life. It brings numerous good issues but in addition some sacrifices. Some gamers can’t stroll down the road anymore with out being nearly mobbed. That’s a giant factor in your non-public life. You want time to adapt to that.’
The Arsenal star ruptured her ACL in November and is now a serious doubt for the World Cup
Mead has taken every thing in her stride. In her e-book, Lioness: My Journey to Glory, she talks about happening vacation with Miedema after her first TV look post-Euros.
‘Strolling by way of the city sq. every night, English vacationers saved stopping me, Mead wrote. ‘One evening, a restaurant proprietor interrupted us to say {that a} household who had simply left had paid for our meal.’
There are extra tales in Mead’s e-book about being recognised on the street after main the Lionesses to glory. The ahead was doing a photoshoot exterior the Emirates when a dustbin wagon pulled over and its driver started chanting: ‘Meado! Meado!’
Although Mead is now some of the well-known feminine gamers in England, there was an amusing second at October’s Ballon d’Or ceremony when an image of her and Miedema was captioned: ‘Vivianne Miedema and a visitor.’ Mead, who completed runner-up to Barcelona’s Alexia Putellas, noticed the humorous facet.
England cricket captain Ben Stokes is in competition to win BBC Sports activities Character of the 12 months
It’s extremely unlikely she will likely be runner-up at SPOTY on Wednesday.
Ought to Mead triumph, Mead will be part of Bobby Moore, Paul Gascoigne, Michael Owen, David Beckham and Ryan Giggs because the footballers who’ve gained the award. That isn’t unhealthy firm.
Mead, although, will little doubt keep grounded. That is the Arsenal ahead who nonetheless cleans her personal boots in spite of everything. What she has achieved in 2022 will go down in historical past and will likely be a part of an enduring legacy for girls’s soccer on this nation.
