When England star Beth Mead decided to write a children’s book encouraging kids to follow their dreams, she drew on the inspiration she had from her very own Lioness.
Because it was her loving school teacher mum June who taught her little cub to reach for the stars.
Now Beth, 28, is dedicating ROAR: A Guide to Dreaming Big and Playing the Sport You Love to June, who died of ovarian cancer in January.
The football ace says she had a whole host of happy childhood memories to draw on for her first book, which is packed full of hints and tips to help kids tap into their sporting talents. Euro 2022 and Arsenal hero Beth vividly recalls June’s knack for turning everything into an adventure – and how she often used puppets to keep the kids at school engaged.
“She had such a good imagination,” she says. “Mum had a puppet called Henry Richard, which the kids at school were absolutely besotted with.
“So, when it came to writing, I had the foundations set, because she had such amazing ideas that inspired me.
“I know how special my book would have been to her and how much pride she would have had reading it to children.”
Both Beth’s parents have been fundamental to her football success, which has seen her win top accolades such as the Euro 2022 Golden Boot, BBC Sports Personality of the Year and be awarded an MBE.
She recalls her dad Richard’s pep talks before she walked onto the pitch as a six-year-old to play for a boys’ team in their home village of Hinderwell, North Yorks.
Beth says: “He’d say, ‘Things are gonna be said, but you just play football and let your feet do the talking’.
“When I walked onto a pitch, some boys would laugh but my team didn’t flinch because they knew what I could do.”
Beth also reveals it was her mum who introduced her to football after she showed no interest in dance classes.
“I was a bit of a tomboy so she tried her best to send me to ballet but it was a bit slow for my liking,” Beth laughs.
“My first unofficial football sessions were at home, pelting balls at my brother.”
Beth was perfectly happy to play alongside boys but eventually joined a girls’ team in Middlesbrough.
Her mum waited on tables one night a week to pay for petrol to take her to games.
And in 2011, Beth got her big break, joining Sunderland women’s team and scoring 66 goals in 82 games. She went on to join Arsenal in the WSL in 2017. Last year’s Euro 2022 win was the pinnacle of Beth’s career so far but her world came crashing down in January when she lost her mum.
She now carries her love and inspiration with her every day. Tattooed on her back is a palm tree, “because they are the only trees when they get their roots pulled that become stronger” – just like June.Beth also has the words ‘love you loads’ inked on her arm in another dedication to her mum.
She says: “I also have a rock she gave me with a picture painted on it of her favourite beach… her happy place. It has two people standing on it, a mother and daughter, and on the back it says ‘Love, Mum. Always take one step at a time’. When I struggle now, I take one step at a time.”
Beth admits the ability to step back and slow down hasn’t always come naturally. She says: “On the night before the England youth camps, I would stay up late and make myself physically sick because I didn’t want to go. I threw my kit in the bin once because I didn’t want to go out of my comfort zone. But my parents would always put on a brave face on and send me on, which was the best thing they could have done.”
Her worst setback as an adult footballer was not making the Tokyo 2020 Olympics GB squad.
“I struggled a lot then,” she says. “I thought I deserved to be there but it wasn’t meant to be.”
The rejection was made worse by Beth’s girlfriend, fellow Arsenal player Vivianne Miedema, 26, playing for the Dutch team.
But June came to her daughter’s rescue once again.
“My mum said she would come down and stay with me over the summer,” says Beth.
“I was working hard and got my head down and Mum was doing my ab workouts with me. Little did we know at that time she already had cancer. She was diagnosed a month later.”
When the best 12 months of her career followed, people called it Beth’s ‘revenge tour’ for missing out on Tokyo but the striker, who now lives in St Albans, Herts, says: “It was a love tour for Mum. I was doing it all for her.”
Beth’s reward was the Lionesses beating Germany in the Euro 2022 Final. “That was the last football game my mum was ever at, which is pretty special.”
Now Beth is a household name, recognised in the street. Sadly, a knee injury wrecked her dream of this summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, but she remains stoic.
“I have no doubt the girls will do amazingly well,” she says. “But I do believe everything happens for a reason and I was made to slow down in the football world so I could spend special moments with my mum before she passed.
“I have a nine-month injury which I’ll come back from, but my mum had something she couldn’t
come back from.”
Beth, who is an ambassador for Ovarian Cancer Action in memory of June, now has the excitement of her first book to enjoy. “I wish Mum could have been here to see it,” she says.
But just as her mum inspired her book, Beth hopes ROAR will inspire children to play football.
“It was difficult for me to get into football and I hope it’s easier now for young boys and girls to find pathways closer to home,” she says. “I’m loud and I’m proud of what I do. I want them to be the same.”
* ROAR: A Guide to Dreaming Big and Playing the Sport You Love is out now.
