Bethany England: The striker that hated to lose and built a lasting connection with Spurs fans
England is leaving the club after three and a half years, 38 goals and plenty of memorable moments
If Bethany England had not come to Tottenham Hotspur in January 2023 the club would likely have been relegated from the WSL. She scored on her debut away at Aston Villa, a game that Spurs lost, and kept on scoring after that. That season her 12 goals in as many games were the critical difference for a struggling side.
It’s hard to overstate the impact of England’s recruitment not just on the pitch but in terms of how fans – and no doubt players – felt about the club.
England arrived as one of the WSL’s leading goalscorers, a player who had plied her trade at Liverpool and Chelsea, and won four WSL titles. This move wasn’t a post-maternity-leave, post-Covid short-term contract as was the case with Alex Morgan in 2020. This was the club stumping up a record fee (at the time) of £250,000 to bring in a star of the WSL on a long-term contract.
She also became the first current Spurs player to play for England, getting minutes and converting a penalty in the 2023 Women’s World Cup, thereby allowing the club to benefit from a small glimmer of the Lionesses lustre. In fact, England remains one of only three players to have got senior minutes with the national team while playing at Spurs, alongside Jessica Naz and Grace Clinton.
Since joining Spurs, England has played under four managers: Rehanne Skinner, Vicky Jepson (interim), Robert Vilahamn and most recently Martin Ho. She has been club captain under the last two head coaches.
England has scored great goals and important goals for Spurs. There were fun ones where she rounded the keeper and shot from the edge of the box, following it up with a knee slide. There were perfectly placed headers and there were last-gasp goals like her 96th-minute equaliser against Manchester City that kept the tie alive and kick-started Spurs’ run to the Women’s FA Cup final in 2024.
In a nice bit of symmetry, England almost perfectly repeated that achievement this season when she again scored in the 96th minute to tie an FA Cup game that Spurs went on to win, this time converting a penalty against London City Lionesses – and then converting another in the shootout that followed.
Across three and a half years at Spurs, England has scored 38 goals, 32 of them in the WSL. In doing so she became the first player to score at least 25 goals at two different WSL teams. And while her output has slowed a little, this season England has to-date scored seven goals in the league, more than any other Spurs player, and has one assist. That is 0.56 goal contributions per 90 minutes, which puts her third in the team, just below Cathinka Tandberg (0.63 per 90) and Olivia Holdt (0.58 per 90).
England’s time at Spurs has not all been plain sailing. Two and a half years ago she had hip surgery, which she later described as saving her from retirement. This caused her to miss the early part of the 2023-24 season. In her absence Martha Thomas took up the mantle but as Thomas’ scoring streak came to a halt and England regained her fitness, England demonstrated once again that she was Spurs’ most important attacking threat, scoring in five of the final six games of the season.
As a long-time Chelsea player before arriving in north London, it was not obvious that England would easily gel with the Spurs support, but she’s become fully “COYS” in her relatively short time at the club, creating excellent relationships with fans, including the Proud Lilywhites, the club’s LGBTQ supporters’ group, who she mentioned “standing alongside” in her tearful leaving video.
As a match-going supporter one of the things that most sticks in the mind are those times when England has come over to the side of the pitch to talk after frustrating losses, which most Spurs fan have witnessed lots of. She’s usually seen shaking her head with frustration and saying something like “it’s not good enough.” It was clear she hated losing and demanded better of herself, her teammates and of supporters.
During games, you could see her corralling teammates to keep going, to get back and defend, to press or challenge for the ball. She was always the first one to congratulate others too, most recently celebrating Ella Morris’ return from an ACL injury. She was eloquent at public or fan events and did a huge amount of promotion and outreach for the club.
It has been reported by The Guardian that the club has not renewed England’s contract because they are looking for young attacking targets this summer. This has become a theme – the six players recruited on permanent contracts under Martin Ho have an average age of 21.2. Meanwhile, the six players who left in January or have been announced to be leaving this summer average 29.3 years. Amongst the remaining squad only Drew Spence (33) is over 30. Tottenham’s list of departures so far also include Charlie Grant, Kit Graham, Amy James-Turner, Luana Bühler and Josefine Rybrink. Ash Neville, who had been at the club since 2015, left in January.
Obviously, there are times when you need to refresh a squad. Moreover, no player can maintain the levels expected in the WSL indefinitely. But there is also a risk when you lose experience and as some fans have noted there are worrying parallels with the Spurs men’s team, which saw a raft of senior players being ‘moved on’ to make space for bright young prospects. We can see how well that is going.
Hopefully, this will not be the fate of the women’s team. Certainly, some of the young incoming players demonstrate huge maturity and exciting talent, Toko Koga (20) and Signe Gaupset (21), most obviously. But others are still somewhat raw in Cathinka Tandberg (20) and Hanna Wijk (22)), or yet to demonstrate how they might contribute usefully to the team, Matilda Nilden (21).
In this context, might the club live to regret disposing of England’s goals and leadership? At least until these young talents have fully blossomed?
Undoubtedly, there is another team in the WSL or farther afield more than happy to recruit a player with England’s rarest of attributes: consistency in front of goal.
“Ohhhh, Bethany England”. It’s been a pleasure and a privilege to watch you. A true professional, a fabulous captain and proper Spurs legend.
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