Beth England For SoccerBible Volumes: 'All Power'

She’s England by name, England by nature. But while one has been with her for life, the other still seems surreal for Beth England; to represent her nation – not least in an international tournament on home soil – still evokes a certain amount of disbelief from the forward, despite the fact she can boast a goal to game ratio for the Lionesses that would stand up against any of her peers. Any trepidation though pales next to the honour that she feels every time she walks out with the Three Lions on her chest.

Coming off the back of an impressive double winning campaign in which Chelsea secured the Women's FA Cup and WSL title, confidence for England couldn’t be higher. A strong finish to the season with injuries hopefully behind her puts her in a good position for the summer. So now it becomes about legacy, about what a player wants to achieve and what they want to be remembered for; it’s about seizing that moment, that opportunity, and writing yourself into the history books. England for England in the final at Wembley… has a certain poetic feel to it.

Smash landing onto the scene, taking the topflight by storm, how would you describe the last five years in a nutshell? 

I think I’ve definitely found my position. I think stemming from Liverpool, from the loan, I’ve found the position that I feel most comfortable in, what I’m best at to help the team. I think I’ve grown as a striker. I’m definitely able to adapt my game to different strengths of different teams in the way in which their centre backs work and their defensive shape. 

I think it’s been a bit hit and miss really, obviously there’s been Covid, I’ve had a few injuries, but I think I’ve still been able to maintain a good level for scoring. A lot has happened in the last five years. I’ve definitely grown as a player, grown as a person and I’ve established myself in what I believe is my perfect role on the pitch. 

So casually said but at the highest level on the pitch and also getting a degree off it, can you tell us about that and that shaping your mind a little bit? 

I’ve just sat my last exam, so that’s my five years of studying done. Thankfully it’s been made easier because I’ve done it through the Open University, so I’ve been able to do it part-time, so it’s not been too heavy on top of trying to do full time sport. It’s been made slightly easier in that sense, but it’s been a challenge balancing both – I’ll be glad to see the end of it!

Has it been a bit of a tonic away from football, as something to focus your mind and energy on? 

I’ve always been interested in law, ever since I can remember, since I was a kid, so for me it’s obviously something different. I’m not someone that’s ever been bothered about studying sports, I do that much of it I don’t want to go home and study it as well, so as you touched on, it’s a completely different topic to put my mind to something and I’ve enjoyed doing it, as stressful as it’s been, and it’s been good to learn new things and yeah, fingers crossed I get over that finish line and we’re good to go. 

While you’ve still got plenty to offer and to give on the pitch, have you been quite conscious about what follows after playing? 

Massively. I think it’s important that you have a backup ready and I think for me I’ve always wanted to make sure that I have a steady structure in place because you don’t know what can happen with football even though, say I’m young, god forbid anything could happen which could prevent me from playing again, and if I didn’t have anything to fall back on I’d want to make sure I’m in a position where I know what route I want to go into after football. So, I feel like I’ve been able to put good steps in place so that when that time comes then I’m prepared for it. 

It feels like you don’t do things by halves. You’ve picked probably one of the most challenging degrees to do – is that a reflection of you? Your overall mindset?

I’m not someone that ever shies away from a challenge, I think is probably the best way of putting it. I definitely didn’t realise how much I’d taken on with this course but again it’s something I’ve always been interested in and wanted to do since I left school. I studied it at college and obviously now doing a degree in it, it’s another passion. When you put your mind to it and you want to do something and you go and do it, it’s rewarding. I’m not afraid of a bit of hard work and I hope that that does reflect in my game a little bit and shows that I’m ready to go when I’m needed.

I’m sure that they’re two completely different feelings but getting exam results back, how does it compare to scoring for England? 

Do you know what, in football I think you kind of learn to get used to the noise of the crowd and the atmosphere and everything so that once you’ve done it a few times it gets easier to manage, whereas I don’t think exams ever get easier because it’s obviously a different question each time and it’s something that you’ve put so many hours studying into that you want to make sure comes out right. If you don’t get the result you want, it’s similar to a loss. I get more nervous, 100 percent more nervous for exams than I would for a game. I feel like I trust myself more on a pitch than I do in an exam room sitting and writing. 

I guess it gets to a point where football becomes such second nature that it’s a completely different world when it comes to exams and law degrees…

Yeah, because on a pitch you have other people to help you, you know? Even if you’re not at your best that day you’ve got other people around you to help you and in an exam room it’s just you and your paper, so I think it’s a bit different when you’re a lone wolf. 

Getting into the England set up, did that seem like a realistic dream when you were growing up? Does it feel natural yet or is it something that’s still surreal? 

For me definitely surreal still. When I was a kid there wasn’t much women’s football shown on TV. You could try and go and watch the games but it wasn’t really televised or shown enough to make me as a little girl think that’s something that I could do one day and I don’t think until I actually came to Chelsea I realised that I could actually do football as a job. 

For me I think, with young girls now, it’s definitely an era where they can see that it’s an ambition and it’s a target and is an achievable dream, whereas when I was younger it’s not something I ever thought about. For me, obviously, it’s an honour every day to be able to go and represent my country and I just love the fact that it works with my surname as well, so yeah it’s just the cherry on top for me. 

Your family must be immensely proud. Has it been quite a blessing to be able to share all the highs over the last few years with the people around you?

Massively. Especially because when I first broke into England, Covid hadn’t come yet so I remember, I never forget when we played at Middlesborough, we played Brazil, although we lost that game, that was my first England goal. It was my third cap and my first England game my family were able to attend as well. So they were in the stands when I scored my first goal for England and strangely someone managed to catch my mum’s reaction on camera, so I had the video of it and honestly, even if I watch it now it brings a tear to my eye because you just see how proud they are. I’m very lucky and fortunate that they come and support me so much where they can, that’s something that I’ll treasure forever. 

That’s a bit of pre match fuel. When you think of the summer and the community that it can bring will you get caught up in that yourself as a fan? As much as you’ll obviously be on the pitch?

I hope I’ll be there on the pitch. For me I think I’m going to try my best not to get caught up in it but I can imagine that there’s going to come a point where it’s going to hit me a little bit because it would be my first tournament. With it being England as well, my family will be attending every game that they can. I think it’s going to be similar to Chelsea games where they can come watch the games but it’s just on a much bigger scale. I definitely have to be aware of not getting caught up in the moment of it all but in the same breath I think what an amazing experience it’s going to be. Having the tournament in your home country I think is going to be unbelievable, because I went to the men’s last year and that atmosphere was incredible. You can’t always replicate it but I will never forget the feeling of walking down Wembley Way to that semi-final and I hope that that’s how the fans come to our games and bring it together and it’ll make the experience all the more worthwhile. 

It feels like everything has been building towards this moment. When you think back to you as a kid and the pitches that you were playing on, and now those pristine conditions, is it night and day? 

Yeah, it’s ridiculous, like I almost feel a bit snobby now on pitches because I think we’ve been so blessed with such good facilities and pitches that when you need to go anywhere that slightly resembles those olden days – when you’d have divot holes, ankles would be rolling, you name it, barely even the paint lines on the pitch – it makes you look back and really appreciate where you come from but also it just shows how far women’s football has come as well. The fact that we’re able to be on such quality pitches just like the men are, I think that’s really important that we get that, as cliché as it sounds, level playing field to be able to show our qualities just as much. 

There comes a time, doesn’t there, where you almost have to stop being grateful for it and there’s a realisation that it’s an elite athlete’s environment you know?

I completely agree. I think there’s a balance between being humble and grateful for what we have but equally appreciating that some standards aren’t as good as what they could be and that we still need to push to pave that way so that we make sure that those standards are in place and that players welfare, safety, conditions of what they’re playing on is of the most quality that it’s going to limit injury to some aspect. There are still some pitches in our league that to me are nowhere near the standard that they should be for the league, but somehow you still have to play on them. So, I think it’s being grateful for what we’ve got and how far we’ve got, but there’s still a lot more to go from here. 

Such a perfect way of putting it. It feels like with every opportunity you’ve levelled up, Whether that’s with Chelsea or with England. Are you someone always hungry to better the last achievement?

I think everyone wants to better themselves, and especially as a striker there’s tough competition. Like my job at the end of the day… I’m paid to put the ball in the net, so if I’m not doing that I don’t perceive myself as doing my job, so I obviously have targets that I want to hit every year and within my capabilities I want to put myself in the best position to be able to do that. It isn’t always as easy as that though, there can be limitations with lots of things. 

I think there’s always a hunger and a drive, especially in myself to make sure that each year I’m consistently performing and getting better numbers because ultimately, I want to be the best forward I can be and if I’m not pushing myself to do that then I’m not going to improve. 

When you think of scoring a goal at a major tournament, what do you think the adrenaline rush would be like? What would it be like if you scored at Old Trafford or Wembley at the Euros?

Yeah, I think my god, if I was to go to the Euros and score in the tournament, I would go absolutely crazy. Like I’d probably end up trying to do a Sam Kerr backflip or something, just trying to just go absolutely crazy but obviously wouldn’t want to break my neck at the same time! But I think in those moments, that’s the stage you want to be on in the highest level for your country, representing everything in front of your family, your friends, all the fans, I think that level of excitement when you score would just go through the roof. I think it’s not to say that the excitement level is any different when you score for club, but it’s a tough one because obviously I feel like I’m quite passionate when I score anyway, whether it’s for Chelsea or for England, It means a lot to the team, to yourself, to the club but I can’t even imagine what it would be like if I was to score in a tournament. I would go absolutely crazy, it would just be a different level.

I can’t wait to see it. 

Yeah, I hope so, I hope you do see it and I hope that I pull out a really good celebration as well. I’ll have to plan it! 

Big moments like cup final winning goals, a positive tournament…it would be so amazing for the next generation of boys and girls to see. What do you think the effect of success can be?

I think as the British public, we’re quite good at getting behind our teams, and I think we saw with the men’s Euros the way it brought everyone together and again I think another home tournament will bring even more fans than what they’d expect. I can imagine a lot of people would want to come and support that have never necessarily been to a woman’s game and might find a new love for it, which brings in more fans and engagement into the game, which is only going to bring in bigger crowds, bring in bigger endorsements so that, like you say, for the younger generations they’re going to have all this to come. They’re going to be playing in stadiums that are full, at full capacity, not just selling half of Wembley, I’m talking full like 90-odd-thousand filled. I think if we were to achieve what we hope to set out to achieve this summer it will really lift women’s football to a new level.

I think we’ve already established ourselves in a phenomenal position but again like anything else you can always do better and achieve more and I think putting ourselves in that position would massively, massively embrace so many more fans, culture, everything into women’s sport. But it’s not just for little girls as well, even little boys that might think they want to go into coaching into women’s sport, there’s so many different routes that people can go in just through being part of it, one way or another. So, I think it’s going to be very uplifting, and I hope that everyone gets behind us as much as possible for it.

Amazing. Final question then: do you ever think about the legacy that you want to leave? Does being part of the history books fuel that desire to win as well?

Do you know what, I never really thought of it but in a way you almost secretly are already leaving a legacy behind by doing what we’re doing. I think to be able to sit and look back in 20 year’s time and realise I was part of that and we created a real moment in a tournament on home soil… people won’t ever forget things like that. I think that would be a very big and proud moment in any player’s career.

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