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28 Jun 2023, 12:27
England footballer and BBC Sports Personality of the Year Beth Mead joined The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with cinch to talk about her debut children’s book.
Roar: A Guide to Dreaming Big and Playing the Sport You Love is out now, and draws on the footy star's amazing trajectory from playing with the boys' team on the pitches of North Yorkshire to winning the Euros with the Lionesses. Speaking about joining in with a potentially “quite rough” all-boys session for the first time as a kid, she told Chris: “My mum was like, ‘It’s alright, just throw her in!’. She just wanted to get rid of me at that point, I think. And yeah, she came back an hour later and they said, ‘Yeah, Beth’s rougher than most of the boys’.”
She added: “When I was on a football pitch, nothing else in the world mattered.”
Aimed at ages 7-11, the book aims to inspire girls and boys everywhere to dream big, work hard and never give up. It also shows that what you learn on the pitch or in the sports hall can help you find success in other parts of your life. The Arsenal star explained: “I didn't ever have a book that helped guide in the sense of, ‘You could do this, you could do that’. And obviously, growing up, I didn't have the dream of being a professional footballer, because that wasn't a wasn't a possibility growing up, but now I hope a young boy or girl looking in that book and read it, understand it and think, ‘I can maybe do that one day’, and they’re just little steps to help with it.”
The book shares tips on following your passions, staying focused and determined, bouncing back from rejection, being a team player, and growing in confidence, as well as pursuing the things that make you happy and that you enjoy most. Beth explained: “At Arsenal and England, we have a lot of support… psychologically, mentally, physically. We are very lucky in the sense that we have all that, and people that can help us with it, but it's not always the case from a younger age and sometimes that can help, so I'd like to think the book helps with that a little bit.”
Roar is dedicated to Beth’s school teacher mum June who died in January from ovarian cancer. Speaking about the best advice her mum ever gave her, the Euro champion said: “Going from Sunderland to Arsenal, I really struggled to be out of my comfort zone, away from home, four hours away, and she's like ‘Just take one second step at a time, get out of bed, brush your teeth, eat your breakfast, get to training and then by [the time] you've done all those different steps, it's the end of the day and you've done it again, and then it becomes the norm.’”
Beth also chatted to Chris about winning the Euros and her "crazy rollercoaster" year since. Read what she had to say.
Roar: A Guide to Dreaming Big and Playing the Sport You Love is out now.
For more great interviews listen to The Chris Evans Breakfast Show with cinch weekdays from 6:30am on Virgin Radio, or catch up on-demand here.
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