In the summer of 2021, Beth Mead was not even deemed to be in the top 18 players in Britain for Team GB’s Tokyo Olympic squad.
A year later, she became a European champion with the Lionesses, playing an instrumental role in July as England won its first major football trophy since 1966. Her six goals earned her the Golden Boot at Euro 2022 and she was named player of the tournament in the process.
After a sensational 12 months in which she helped the Lionesses break new ground for women’s football in this country, and also enjoyed a superb club season with Arsenal, Mead was runner-up for the Ballon d’Or in October, beaten by Barcelona and Spain midfielder Alexia Putellas.
But bookmakers already have her as a shoo-in for her latest gong, the BBC Sports Personality of the Year Award, in Salford tonight.
It has been a remarkable turnaround year from what Mead called the hatred of the Olympic omission, which she later said “lit a fire under me”.
She has channelled that disappointment, coupled with the anger of her mother’s cancer battle, to go from the fringes of the England team to become its beating heart.
The forward made the difference in a nervy opener at the Euros, scoring the only the goal as England made hard work of a 1-0 win over Austria. A hat-trick followed in a record-breaking 8-0 victory over Norway, before another goal in a 5-0 win over Northern Ireland. After a dramatic extra-time win against Spain, Mead scored a sublime goal to set England on their way to a 4-0 win over Sweden in the semi-finals, before the Lionesses made history against Germany in the final at Wembley.
Mead was the standout star of Sarina Wiegman’s side, not just for the goals, but the assists — she had five in the finals — skill and pace.
Ian Wright has described the 27-year-old as a “goalscoring monster”. Last season, with Arsenal, she enjoyed a career-best WSL campaign with 11 goals.
Wiegman has been integral to Mead’s success, in giving her back the belief at international level, so too at club level, where Jonas Eidevall told her on his arrival in the summer of 2021 she was good enough to win the Ballon d’Or.
Playing some of the best football of her career, Mead looked set to spearhead Arsenal’s tilt at the Champions League this season before rupturing her anterior cruciate ligament in a match against Manchester United last month.
The injury threatens her participation at next summer’s World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, with extensive rehab under way following surgery.
Tonight has all the hallmarks of a slow march to becoming the 15th female winner of SPOTY in its 68-year history, a contest which critics claim has lost its relevance and which is often maligned as much for the names missing from the shortlist as those on it. The golfer Matt Fitzpatrick has the greatest grievance of those omitted, after he became just the third Englishman in 52 years to win the US Open, golf’s second oldest Major. He was also the first English male winner of any Major for six years.
There will be other absentees with gripes, but those joining Mead on the six-strong shortlist are Ben Stokes, Jake Wightman, Ronnie O’Sullivan, Eve Muirhead and Jessica Gadirova.
While Mead has been the fulcrum of what was a transformative tournament for the Lionesses and women’s sport as a whole, Stokes has flipped the England men’s Test team on its head.
Wightman’s glorious and, it has to be said, unexpected 1500metre world title in Eugene, Oregon, in the summer was as memorable for the exquisite timing of his race as the reaction of his father.
Meanwhile, at 46, O’Sullivan became snooker’s oldest ever world champion in winning a record-equalling seventh title in May in what was his 30th appearance at the Crucible.
There is winter sport representation on the list in Muirhead, who as skip led the British team to Olympic curling gold at her fourth Games.
At 18, Gadirova is comfortably the youngest on the list, courtesy of her three medals at the World Gymnastics Championships in Liverpool, capped off with floor gold on the final day last month. Her bronze in the all-around was an historic first for Britain.
All, though, look likely to battle for the podium places behind Mead.
