On Friday morning, with impeccable timing, a new mural appeared at the less salubrious end of Aylesbury’s high street. It depicted Ellen White, the star striker of the England women’s football team, in her trademark scoring celebration: putting her fingers around her eyes to make goggles. The previous evening a record UK television audience of 7.6 million had watched White strike the pose after she scored England’s second goal in their 3-0 victory against Norway in the World Cup quarter-final.
Mark Willis, a local councillor and until last month the mayor of Aylesbury, was one of many on Friday who went to see the new street art, which is on the blank end of a parade of shops, between St Joseph’s church and a nail bar called Jessica’s. “It’s stunning,” enthused Willis. “This part of town is a little bit tired, there’s some empty shops, and that sort of thing just lifts it. It’s put a smile on everyone’s faces.”
On Tuesday, all eyes will be on the Aylesbury-born 30-year old England forward as she and the Lionesses face the USA in the semi-final in Lyon. Not least because she is in direct competition for the golden boot with USA forwards Alex Morgan and Megan Rapinoe. All three have five goals each in the competition so far.
Fearsome Rapinoe, whose partner is American basketball player Sue Bird, has made a name for herself both on and off the pitch in the last few weeks. On Friday, having beaten host nation France to the semis, she declared “Go gays!”, before saying that “you can’t win a championship without gays on your team”.
Earlier in the competition she began a row with US president Donald Trump after footage emerged of her declaring that she was “not going to the fucking White House” should the USA win. The president lambasted her lack of respect on Twitter. The pressure is on for White, with a much lower public profile than Rapinoe, to add more goals to her total than her rival.
“Ellen is, I wouldn’t say a household name, but pretty well known in the town,” said Willis. “And having a young woman – and we know there’s an issue with young women doing sport and exercise – born in the town, reaching the highest level, is so inspirational. It has a real effect when you have someone who is from exactly the same circumstances as you are making it to the top.”
In many ways the hope is that girls interested in football now will have a very different experience from the one that White had when she was starting out in the 1990s. She came to football through her father, Jon, who organised a mini-league academy in Aylesbury, where boys and girls played together. Her skill and determination stood out from the beginning and, at the age of eight, she attracted the interest of Arsenal, then the pioneering team in women’s football in England. At 10, White was playing for Aylesbury Town in the Chiltern Youth League, still mixing it with the boys. And she was thriving, scoring more than 100 goals in the league.
But then came a hitch. Officials from the league told White that she was now too old to play mixed football. Her father was furious, fearing it would either stunt her development or make her lose interest in the game. He complained that the decision was “not helping development of women’s football”. It also risked being “a waste of talent”.
Fortunately White did remain engaged, and she has now made 86 appearances for England and this is her third World Cup. In 2011, after a strong showing in the group stages, the Lionesses crashed out on penalties to France in the quarter-finals (with White unfortunate to miss a good chance in extra time). Four years later, at the 2015 World Cup in Canada, England made it to the semis, but Japan were too strong.
The hope, in 2019, is that a core of the England team are fit and at their peak: not just White, but class act Lucy Bronze, the marauding right back, and 32-year-old midfielder Jill Scott, so integral that she alone seems to be above manager Phil Neville’s controversial rotation policy.
“We want to inspire and to build a legacy,” said Neville. “We had a camp last year and we set out the objectives for the next 12 months, and all I wanted them to say was ‘win the World Cup’. But they were thinking bigger than winning a World Cup, which knocked me in my stride a little bit. We want the Lionesses to have a name that people around the world can relate to … badass women. That was our mantra.”
There’s already been some clamour in Aylesbury to temporarily rename the town “Ellsbury” in honour of the local sensation. Willis, for one, thinks the idea has merit. “Ellsbury … I’m sure we could do that, particularly if she scores the winner in the final,” he said, chuckling. “We’ll make that happen.”
