England and Manchester City goal machine Ellen White is joyful and triumphant

John Nicholson
Ellen White looks happy for England

Ellen White has 50 goals for England and will doubtless add more at the Euros. What a player and what a thoroughly nice woman.

 

Who’s this then?
Ellen Toni White is a 5’7″ (though looks much taller, somehow, especially in an England shirt) young-looking 33-year-old striker for Manchester City and England. She stands on the verge of being England’s greatest goalscorer of all time having netted 50 goals for England heading into this summer’s Euros, which kick off on Wednesday.

An Arsenal fan from a family of Arsenal supporters, she was spotted as a youngster by Arsenal’s youth academy and played for them from aged eight until she was 16 when she moved to Chelsea in 2005. It is a sign of how little the women’s game was studied in 2005 that there are few statistics available about players beyond the basics until 2011 and no comprehensive statistical analysis until 2018, just four years ago.

21 goals in 48 games for the Blues took her to Leeds Carnegie for two seasons. She did her cruciate at Leeds and was out for a few months but won the Women’s Premier League Cup in 2010. However, Leeds fell apart due to lack of money and she returned to Arsenal for three successful seasons. She scored 34 times in 62 games, won the WSL in 2011 and 2012, the FA Women’s Cup (2011, 2013) and FA WSL Cup (2011, 2012 and 2013).

In 2013 she left for Notts County on a three-year contract but knacked her ACL and was out of the whole season. Despite scoring 11 in 33 games, it wasn’t a successful period in her career and she moved to Birmingham City, where she scored 23 times in 28 games; 15 in 14 games in 2017/18 was her best season to date.

2019 saw her move to Manchester City where she remains, having scored 34 in 86 games and winning the Women’s FA Cup and the FA WSL Cup.

Internationally, she’s been playing for England since 2010 and has now scored 50 times in 105 games, winning the Cyprus Cup in 2013, the SheBelieves Cup in 2019 and the Arnold Clark Cup in 2022.

Despite having played for six clubs, there appears to be no record of a transfer fee ever being paid for her, despite being one of the best strikers in world football. She signs a contract and sees it out, like a normal person, in a normal business and without drama. And isn’t that refreshing?

 

Why the love?
Obviously, with 196 goals in 404 games so far in her career, she is a guarantee of goals and her fans obviously love that. She has great positional sense, getting ahead of defenders for near-post glancing headers, or a first-time volley. Her speed of thought in the box gives her a real edge.

She knows when to just stop in the box, wait and make herself some space by doing so. I love that and she has that striker’s instinct for knowing where the goal is. On top of that, she’s just a fantastic finisher. Fran Kirby, her England teammate, says, “She has so much composure when she goes one v one with a goalkeeper.”

She started out on the right of a front three but has had more success when she was played through the middle, changing her game to be far more penalty box-based. Watch any City game or England match, she’s on her tiptoes waiting to be fed in at all times, always alert, always looking for the smallest of chances.

When she passed Kelly Smith’s 46 goals for England, Smith said: “She’s very humble, she’s very wise, she’s a very likeable person within the team, on and off the pitch. She’s just a delightful person really. She’s worked extremely hard to get to where she’s at and she deserves all the accolades.” And you can’t say fairer than that. She does seem a very self-effacing, downright nice person.

She does the ‘goggles’ goal celebration which, when Jonjo Shelvey does it, looks kind of dumb, but when she does it seems somehow joyous. Then again, hers is copied from her hero Anthony Modeste and intended as a tribute to the Cologne striker whereas Shelvey’s is a pish take of his brother because he wears…err…glasses.

I doubt I’ve ever seen anyone so delighted to score each and every goal, her eyes wide, often screaming, head thrown back and almost overwhelmed with emotion, seemingly shocked that the ball has actually hit the back of the net. She has one of those open faces which betrays their feelings completely and that is just a very endearing, organic, unselfconscious quality. Look at how she celebrates this excellent goal.

No too cool for school there. I like to think we’d all lose our shit in the same way if we scored for our country. Why wouldn’t you?

There are no tinted windows of grotesque financial privilege in the women’s game and, although it may be subconscious, I think this connects them to a wide range of fans of all ages and genders. Everything feels modest, human and easier to embrace.

She and her husband are kit sponsors of Oldham Athletic women, which seems typically down to earth for Ellen White, one of the best strikers in international football.

 

Three great moments
A very creative free kick from her days at Notts County:

This is such powerful stuff:

This is how you convert a cross:

 

Future days?
Her contract at City runs until 2023. Despite a couple of major injuries, she looks like one of those players who is naturally very fit and she’s still scoring plenty of goals, so she’s far from near the end of her career. With the Euros this summer and the World Cup in Australia and New Zealand next summer and the next Euros in 2025, by which time she’ll still only be 36, there is plenty of opportunity for her to substantially add to her current 50 international goals, especially as England are looking so strong at the moment and seem set to go deep into every competition. Her experience will be important in big games and as a seasoned professional, she’s already ‘third’ captain for the Euros.

She will be remembered as one of the generation of players who took women’s football from being largely disregarded in the shadows, wearing men’s kit, into the sunny lush upland pastures of national popularity. She is inspirational and helped turn the disparaging ‘no-one cares’ comment, into a marker for stupidity and narrow-mindedness. That is the legacy to be proud of. The future is very bright for women’s football and Ellen White is one reason why.