For Mum

We’ve got this old abbey in Whitby, at the top of the cliffs there. It’s a ruin now, overlooking the port. And leading you up, you’ve got these 199 steps.

They make a big thing about those steps: they’re a landmark in themselves. You even go on school trips there. Up all these endless steps — up and up and up — to see this pile of stones on a hill. 

When you're 7 or 8 years old, it feels like climbing Everest.

Of course, you don’t appreciate any of it at the time. You just go.

But lately, life’s had me thinking about them 199 steps a bit differently. Grief will do that to you. You start seeing everything in a new light. 

I guess the first step in my story was at Botham’s — and if you know the North, you know it’s the best bakery around. That’s where my dad first chatted up my mum.

He’d been working night shifts there, doing whatever they do on night shifts at a bakery. And it was like 2 a.m. or something and he’d just be starting as my mum was on her way home from a nightclub with her mates, and they’d wave at each other through the window of the shop.

They’d met a few years back at a party and they never forgot each other, keeping it going with a little Hello in the middle of the night. Her in a party dress, no matter how cold it was. Him in his Botham’s uniform, probably covered in flour. 

And it went on like that until I think he’d had enough and he eventually started calling out to her, out there in the road outside the bakery, giving it the big licks, like. Letting her know: You’re a good looking girl, June. 

But she was having none of it. 

Or so she claimed. I don’t know what it was he finally said to her but, a couple weeks later, he asked her to the Wilson Arms, this pub in Sneaton that had a disco on Saturday nights. He must’ve been some dancer, my dad, because, after that, it was a wrap. 

You know how parents exaggerate, but they told me they’d only ever dated each other in their lifetime. I like to think that’s true. That disco was in 1986. They were together pretty much every day for 37 years after that.

And they still would be, if only that were possible.

---

---

For me, life started in a house full of magic. 

Maybe all kids say that. There’s just something magical about childhood. The way your clothes magically get washed and ironed. The way dinner magically gets cooked and put on the table. 

But at ours, there was something else. 

Have I told you about the fairies? We used to live in this little house in a place called Runswick Bay, just up the coast from Whitby. It was a village between this big national park called the Moors on one side and the sea on the other. It was a pretty special place to grow up, so it only made sense that the elves and fairies were always visiting us there. 

I used to love collecting stuff. Pokémon cards, Match Attax, filling up the books, the little pockets they’d give you for doubles. I’d buy the packs with my pocket money. There wasn’t much money knocking about then — 50p would only get you so far. 

But my mum would tell me: If you’re good, maybe the elves and the fairies might bring you some nice surprises. 

And I remember sometimes I'd go up to my room after coming home from school and I’d see a few packs on my bed.

Oh my God! Oh my God! The fairies have been! And they've brought me Match Attax! 

Me and my younger brother, we’d get these surprises out of nowhere, our faces lighting up, and we’d be yelling, so excited. How is this happening?!

I’d fill up my little booklets with those cards, thanks to those surprises. And I had this coin collection of Pokémon — actually I’m still gutted, because that would be worth a fortune now. Probably ended up at some car boot sale in Lebberston. 

Anyway, there was this one time, the elves outdid themselves. I wanted a bunk bed, right — don’t ask me why. We didn’t need one. Me and my brother had our own rooms. But a bunk bed was all I wanted for Christmas. Just for me. 

And the elves brought me a bunk bed! How did they get a bloody bunk bed up there? And they brought it early, too, so I could sleep in it on Christmas Eve and wait for Santa. 

Sometimes the magic was smaller. Sometimes it was just a note under my pillow. Letting me know I was loved. And every year I’d get a Valentine’s Day card signed with a question mark. Even as a proper little tomboy, you still want to believe that question mark’s real, don’t you? 

Now that I'm older, I’m pretty sure it was my mum…. She was a teacher’s assistant for 20 years, so she worked with kids every day and she knew the importance of imagination. A little bit of magic goes a long way. Especially in a place like Whitby.

You know, when the Lionesses won the Euros, they did this thing where they got the council to name a local pitch after you. But where I grew up, we didn’t even really have a proper pitch to rename. 

We used to play in this park near where my gran lived. There was literally just one rusty old goal post and two jumpers at the other end. 

Or we had, like, these industrial garages where we spray painted crossbar on the wall and played heads and volleys there. 

That was my football journey. 

See what I mean? To be a young girl growing up there, wanting to be a footballer…. That wasn’t even just a dream. It was just beyond that. Beyond imagination. 

But I just couldn’t stop playing football. The boys would all knock on my house and ask me to come and play with them. No girls knocked — ever. I was never playing “Kitchen” or on the swings. I’d be out playing with the boys until my mum had to come out and literally drag me home for dinner. 

Football was second nature. I remember this one time, I’m at my aunt’s wedding. She texted me the other day, actually — it was her 25th wedding anniversary, so I must’ve been like, 5 or 6 at the time. And they’ve got me as a flower girl and, even then, I’m the least-likely flower girl in the world. And I remember I had these ballet slippers on and they were giving me the worst blisters you’ve ever seen. 

As soon as the service was over, I made my dad go home and get me my astroturfs. 

So now there’s all these pictures of me as a little girl in this cute little dress and I’ve got black and neon green Diadora astros on and I’m up on people’s shoulders, hanging upside down, getting thrown about, and I’m having the time of my life.

When I got old enough, it was never in question that I’d join a club. My dad would drive me everywhere — up and down the motorway. Some weeks it was 300-mile round trips in his old Citroën, listening to Madness and Meat Loaf on cassette. We’d talk about Fergie and Giggsy and Becks and whoever else — my dad, the Man United fan — and listen to the same songs again and again and again. 

The tune to “One Step Beyond” is still burnt onto my brain. 

But all that driving, all that petrol, it adds up. And it wasn’t like the fairies were bringing in extra money each month. My dad worked as much as he could, and my mum had to take an extra job in a pub down by the beach to make ends meet.

She’d be at school all day, get home, and an hour later, she’d be working at the pub until late at night. Me and my dad, sometimes we’d walk to the cliffs and we’d cut through the pub car park and we’d see her at the back window — and every time with this massive smile on her face. 

We’d wave at each other through the glass. 

I don’t think you’re really able to appreciate that kind of graft at the time. I know I didn’t understand how much sacrifice they made for us. 

And it wasn’t like they were doing it because they thought I was going to play for Sunderland, play for Arsenal, play for England. They were just doing it because I loved it and they loved me. 

But I think about her now, stood at that window…. And I just think:

How was she always smiling?

---

---

Not everything growing up was quite so easy for me. 

To say I was an anxious kid would be a bit of an understatement. When I first joined the academy at Middlesbrough, I couldn’t fit in. It was very townie, as they say — quite cliquey. If we’d have to break off into groups of four in training, I’d always be the one left on my own. I felt so isolated. 

And my dad did his best on the drive home, Meat Loaf blaring, asking me questions: How did this go today? How did that go? He’d have been watching me from the balcony by the training pitch — looking out for our Beth — but I don’t think he could really tell from up there. I was very talented from a young age. Playing the game, I never struggled. But the rest of it was a lot harder.

He was never a very emotional man, my dad. He’s very whisky-and-a-western on the sofa, if you know what I mean. But he’d always try. He’d try and regulate me or at least distract me with Fergie-talk again. Eventually I had to leave Boro, and I worried that every girls team was gonna be like that….

I ended up back playing with the boys teams for a while and felt so much more at home. But even then, it wasn’t perfect. Opposition players, parents on the sideline, they’d laugh at me. 

You’ve got a GIRL on your team?

Then I’d score a brace in the first 10 minutes, and they’d be looking at one another like….

Shit — this one’s alright, ain’t she?

And the lads on my team were amazing. They knew I wasn’t just a token girl on the pitch. I was one of them.

We were all proper mates. We’d have sleepovers together. I remember going out and hanging off the back of ice cream vans with them, me in a Lacoste tracksuit. I grew up so much playing in those teams. My ability grew and grew and, eventually, so did my confidence. 

My mum just let me do what I had to do. She never tried to sand me down or make me more polite or more girly. I was mischievous, a bit cheeky. She always had this picture framed on her mantelpiece: I’ve got my brother in a headlock and he’s crying and I’m smiling the biggest grin. 

That was just you, she’d say. That’s Beth. 

She let me become the person I wanted to be. And sometimes, that meant encouraging me to persevere through the hard times. 

When I came through at Sunderland, I was only 16. We were playing in the third division of women’s football and I was studying at Teesside University, pulling pints in the pub to pay my way when I wasn’t on the pitch. (I loved that pub, to be fair….)

And I was banging in goals and had all this success and we had promotion after promotion. And when I was 20, I became the youngest top scorer in WSL history. I couldn’t believe it. 

And then Arsenal came in for me. 

Things were hard from Day One. Being in London was like being in another world. I was struggling. I kept calling my mum, like: I can’t do this. She’d be at work, in the classroom, having to duck into a supply closet to take my call so she wouldn’t get in trouble. She always knew what to say. Always had a way of calming me down.

One step at a time, Beth. Break your day down: Get up, go have breakfast, go have a coffee, then get in your car…. Break it all up. Because each time you do one of those little things, you’re achieving something.

I was already injured when I signed for the club. It only added to all this anxiety — moving clubs, moving cities, the injury, the rehab — and a new manager to impress. But I thought, football’s always been the thing I can fall back on, so all I had to do was get up, have my coffee, and show them what I can do.

My first session, I was on it. I was playing great. And then I went in for a 50-50 with the goalkeeper and I go flying. I flip over the top of her and I break my collarbone. Back at square one again. Rock bottom. Injured. Alone. No football for six weeks. 

My mum had to come down and see me in London every weekend, and during the week she’d be ringing me: You feeling better today, Beth? She was on edge because I was, too. I know that was so hard for her. 

When she’d come to see me, I’d always walk her to the train station, not wanting her to go. When I’d get back to my room, I’d flop down on the bed and under my pillow, I’d find a note:

Love you loads. With these three little hearts underneath it. 

Sometimes that’s all you need.

---

---

Everyone might see the Euros as the peak of my career. And I get it. That whole summer was something truly special. But what meant the most was getting to share it with her. 

Maybe you’ve seen the photos. Maybe you know some of the story. 

But I still need to tell you my version.

One day, my mum FaceTimed me out of the blue. I was in the bath when she called, actually. It was normal. We spoke every single day. We had that kind of relationship.

But as soon as I answered and saw her face, I knew something was different.

My dad was sat next to her on the sofa as she spoke. He never did that. He was always buzzing around in the background doing something or other. And my mum said: Beth, we’ve got something to tell you, but there’s no need to worry. Which obviously worried me. 

She laid it all out: She’d been having tests for a few weeks. Seen the specialists. And she told me she’d been diagnosed with ovarian cancer. And as soon as I heard the C-word, everything inside me just broke down. I’m sitting in the bath and my world feels like it’s crumbling.

She must’ve heard it in my voice. But she said: Don’t worry, we’ve got a plan in place. I know what I need to do. Everything’s going to be OK. You have to keep going. One step at a time. 

That was the summer of 2021. I’d just been left out of the Olympics squad. And this news…. It didn’t break me. It lit a fire under me. I hit preseason and didn’t stop. I played out of my skin all year. My mum was going through chemo and we had this plan. I kept scoring and, with the Euros coming up, she’d be on the other side of this. We’d be on the other side of it together.

Maybe I shouldn’t say this, but it gave me this motivation I never knew that I had. I hadn’t really told anyone about the diagnosis at this point, and people on the outside just saw me breaking all these records, winning all these awards, and called it the Beth Mead Revenge Tour. 

Mum was on such a high watching me that season. I think for all of us, football was our anchor. It was the one thing that was distracting us, and giving us so much joy. We rode that wave into the Euros — that whole July just absolutely flying, into the final, into lifting the trophy, and I told her afterwards, with “Sweet Caroline” playing behind us, everyone singing their heart out in that stadium around us: 

Mum, this is your moment, too. 

The notes under my pillow. The Match Attax. The bunk beds. The fairies and the elves. The extra petrol money. The late shifts in the pub. Her little wave to us from behind the glass. 

Maybe she knew I was destined for something. But for her and my dad, I think they just wanted to see me happy. To see me shine. 

Coming down from that win, it was tough, I can’t lie. We were suddenly famous — world famous. I went on holiday to Greece after and I swear every single person I saw came up to congratulate me. People were coming up to us at dinner, asking for autographs. I never expected that in my life!

But then we had to come back down to earth. With all this expectation on us, having to come back to preseason…. It wasn’t easy for any of the girls. 

Then I found out my mum’s cancer had come back.

I had to just focus on my football, power through, hit the ground running — all that. But this time it was different.

It had started again just 10 days after the Euros. I didn’t know she’d had this cough. She’d gone to the doctors and they told her that the cancer had spread to the fluids travelling around her body now and it was impossible to get rid of it. 

For months she couldn’t keep anything down. Literally: Everything she ate came back up. How on earth do you stay positive through that? But somehow she did it. 

What happened next, I’ll never be able to explain. I really believe everything happens for a reason — even the bad things. 

In the 93rd minute of a match, I got pushed from behind, and I landed awkwardly. Next thing, I felt the worst pain of my life. Immediately, I knew it was bad. The tests confirmed it. 

ACL. Nine months out. My sanctuary, taken away from me when I thought I needed it the most. 

Turns out, it was a blessing in disguise. 

I got the most precious gift in the world … time. 

---

---

After my surgery, I moved home. For a solid month, I was there with her. 

I was able to be there, right next to her, navigating this horrible time, the last weeks of her life. 

I remember this one moment when we were sitting on the sofa together and I was flexing my knee. I’d had a patella graft on my ACL leg and I had to spend so much time straightening and flexing my knee. It’s the key to rehab. And it really hurts. So I’m complaining about this pain, bending my knee back and forwards, and my mum is sat next to me, and she’s skin and bones with her IV drip in her arm. 

She just looked at me and said: You’ll be fine. 

100-percent Yorkshire, that.

But she was right. She put everything in perspective for me, in an instant. 

I knew she was terminal and wouldn’t ever see me play football again. But she’d just say to me: Beth, I want you to get back on that pitch again. 

I wanted my mum to see me come back but I knew that wouldn’t ever be possible. 

Even now, two-and-a-half years since she died, there’s so many random moments when I feel like I need to ring her. When I’m having a bad day or a tough time or some problem I want to speak to her about. 

I used to call her every day. Now I can’t. That’s something I’m still trying to get used to. 

But she had her ways of staying in touch. 

Maybe three or four days before she died, she asked everyone except me to leave the room. She had this notebook and she’d written down everything she needed for her funeral. As if it was all totally normal. 

Where did she find that strength from? 

She wanted Robbie Williams’ song “Angels” played at the service. A classic mum choice. But she had another question to ask me:

Beth, she said. Would it be OK if they played “Sweet Caroline,” too?

Of course, I said yes. 

She used to sing it at the top of her lungs after every England win. She’d stand on chairs singing it, jumping up and down, people telling her off. She was cheeky in her own way, as well. Mischievous, just like I was.

I didn’t understand it at the time, but now I get it: 

That was Mum’s cheeky way of haunting me. 

Every time I hear that song now when I’m on a football pitch. I look to the spot where she’d be dancing away, and I think of her. Sometimes it makes me feel good. Sometimes it crushes me. 

That’s just how grief works.

But every time — even when it’s overwhelming — I can feel her with me. She’s always there.

And that’s how Arsenal became my second family, right when I needed them. 

I was at the church for the funeral, walking behind my mum’s coffin, and I looked up and saw my whole team there. Twenty or 30 of the staff and players got on a coach at 4 a.m. to travel up for it. 

That’s not just teammates stuff. That’s real graft. All of them there because they really cared about me, as a human. 

They rallied around me and we found that strength together. 

Obviously, it hasn’t been easy. We’ve been a bit unlucky. We’ve struggled with injuries in the years since. But we held onto each other. Held so many different emotions for each other. And that’s what a family does. 

I’m so happy that we have the chance to write history together in this Champions League Final, and I know that my mum will be watching down on us – her girls. 

Sometimes I can’t believe it’s been more than two years since she passed. I still go home whenever I can, to check in on Dad and his cowboy films, and maybe get a quick cake from Botham’s. And I saved all those notes under my pillow. I even got one of them tattooed on me — the words Love you loads. 

And the Pokémon coins might be gone, but I’ve got my own collectible cards now — ones with my face on them. Talk about a full-circle moment. 

But maybe the most important thing that I always hold onto is this rock we’ve got at home. It’s from the beach nearby. The one down by the cliffs, where me and my dad would wave through the pub window to my mum. 

When I was in London, feeling all alone in my lowest moments, Mum had that stone varnished and engraved with her mantra. 

And it feels so fitting.

These simple words and that image in my mind. The Abbey on the cliffs. The long path leading up there. Those 199 steps….

The ones that seem to take forever until you’re at the top and you can see all that sky and all that sea.

Mum’s final words to me. Her final gift.

“One step at a time.”