Chelsea striker Beth England pays tribute to childhood grassroots club with gift of Adidas kits
BETH ENGLAND praised grassroots football for influencing her rise to the top of the women’s game after giving away new playing gear to her childhood club in Barnsley.
The Chelsea ace is backing an Adidas campaign aiming to provide up to 10,000 European amateur sides with kits produced by the sports brand.
And the Blues forward, 26, who returns to WSL action on Tuesday with Chelsea facing Tottenham in a league cup clash, kicked things off by sending apparel to her old Sunday side Junior Tykes FC.
In an Instagram post, accompanied by a childhood image of the striker clutching a trophy, England said: “Grassroots football helped me fall in love with this game.
“Without it I would never have known the potential I had.”
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It was while playing for the Tykes, at the age of seven, alongside her twin sister that Barnsley-born England says she discovered her ‘love for football’.
And the former Doncaster Belle, named the PFA’s Women’s Player of the Year in September, recalls experiencing a particularly heavy loss during one of her earliest matches for the Yorkshire-based boys’ team.
Far from putting her off the game, the Blues attacker reckons the unforgettable drubbing she and her twin experienced made her even more determined to get back out on the pitch.
Speaking to the FA’s website England said: “When it came to our first-ever game for them (Junior Tykes FC), it didn’t go so well and we were brought down to earth with a bump.
“We played against a team called Spy Rangers and we lost quite heavily, something like 21-0.
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“I remember our Mum and Dad being worried that we’d probably never want to go back, but we loved it that much we couldn’t wait to play again.
“Funnily enough, there was a girl on the Spy Rangers team called Meaghan Sergeant, who now plays for Bristol City in the WSL.
“We used to play against her regularly so she’d probably look back at those days with fondness too.”
CHARITABLE CHELSEA
England’s generous act comes as her fellow Chelsea star Reece James joined Marcus Rashford’s battle to prevent children from hard-up families going hungry during school holidays.
The Blues right-back, whose team take on Sheffield United in the Prem on Saturday, has donated £10,000 to a London food charity with the hope of raising ten times this amount by December.
And the Daily Mail reports the 20-year-old England international has teamed up with the Felix Project – a charity delivering surplus food to people in need of it in the capital.
It is thought that James is aiming to raise £100,000k before his 21st birthday on December 8 this year.