Ella Toone's goal in the Euro 2022 helped to change the landscape of women's football in England but her passion for the game first discovered in Tyldesley remains a constant
Ella Toone scored the opening goal of the Euro 2022 final
Ella Toone scored the opening goal of the Euro 2022 final(Image: Naomi Baker/Getty Images.)
Long before Ella Toone scored in the 2022 Euros final at Wembley, life in Tyldesley looked quite different.
And a decade before she had her very own mural painted onto the brick of the Union Arms pub in her hometown, the 23-year-old only had eyes for one thing – her love of football.
A member of Leigh Harriers in her youth, Toone could have been a runner, just like her lifelong friend and 800m Olympic gold medallist Keely Hodgkinson.
She could have taken a route into netball, going through the ranks of Tyldesley Netball Club, nurtured by coach and auntie Emma Toone, who has a knack for sending players onto the Manchester Thunder pathway.
But it was her unadulterated passion for the beautiful game that captivated a young Ella Toone, the thrill of racing up the pitch with a ball at her feet.
Following in Ronaldo’s footsteps
Manchester United’s No.7 grew up watching idol Cristiano Ronaldo light up the Premier League, and when she steps onto the Leigh Sports Village and Old Trafford turf, she is just as prolific.
Though her rise to the top with her beloved club was far from linear.
Toone’s journey starts at Hindsford Football Club, a five-minute walk from her family home.
A newborn at the time, her father Nick took his daughter, dressed in white, to watch his friends play on the club’s squelching muddied pitch off East Lancashire Road.
Speaking to England Football, she recalled: “My dad always tells me a story about when I was a newborn baby and he took me to watch the football down at our local team, Hindsford Football Club.
“He said I was dressed in a nice little white dress my mum had put me in and he was just planning to stand and watch the game, but they were a player down.
“They shouted over: ‘Nick, can you come and play?’ He was like: ‘I’ve got my newborn baby!’.
“He ended up playing, though, and then the ball went really high up in the air and landed on me and the pram went over.
“I was crying and my mum was going mad because I had a football stain on my dress. So, my dad always says that was the day you decided you wanted to play football.”
The football stain never came out and was the catalyst for Toone’s dazzling career at youth level, playing with her brothers before moving to Astley and Tyldesley Girls FC.
Ella Toone of Manchester United celebrates after scoring their side's fourth goal to complete their hat-trick during the Barclays Women's Super League match between Manchester City and Manchester United
Ella Toone of Manchester United celebrates
(Image: James Gill - Danehouse/Getty Images.)
Back and forth from United
She spent two years at the Wigan club before being scouted to train at Manchester United’s Centre of Excellence.
But back then, her childhood team did not have a senior women’s setup and there was no pathway for Toone to break into the highest ranks.
After seven years of wearing the badge with pride, she moved to Blackburn Rovers as part of a dual contract with Manchester City, training with the rival club and playing for the Lancashire side.
She would play alongside other up-and-coming talents like Georgia Stanway and follow in the footsteps of Keira Walsh.
Toone racked up 13 goals in 20 appearances for Rovers under Gemma Donnelly and made five appearances for Manchester City between 2013 and 2018.
She was nurtured at the ‘Football Factory of the North’, but when Manchester United formed their own professional women’s team in 2018, Toone was not going to let the opportunity go amiss.
The exciting talent signed for the club under Casey Stoney in the same summer and has never looked back, going from strength to strength with her adored team.
She told The Guardian: “As soon as United said there was a women’s team, I just wanted to come home and I’ve loved every minute since.
“It’s the proudest thing ever to wear this shirt and wear this badge. Growing up supporting the club, it’s massive.
“I come to training every day and I’m at the club that I support. You just want to work as hard as you can for the badge and for the girls around you.
“I’m also really happy for the girls in the academy that have the opportunity now to work hard and dream big. All I ever wanted to do was play professional football for Manchester United.”
Inseparable duo
In 2022, Toone became the first Manchester United Women’s player to make 100 club appearances and her England trajectory has been just as accomplished.
She travelled to England training camps from as young as 13 where she met her best friend and fellow Lionesses star Alessia Russo, with the inseparable duo going through every peak and trough together for over a decade
Speaking to GQ earlier in the year, Russo said: "There are so many highs and lows in football and to have a constant in your best friend throughout that is really nice.
"We've seen each other at our best and worst. We’ve had the highest of highs last summer winning the Euros together, and had some tough points too, but that just makes the friendship stronger.
“We've been friends since we were 12 or 13, and we'll be friends forever.”
"Like ‘Less said, it's nice to have someone there who's been through it all and understands it,” Toone added.
“Not many best friends can say that they’ve won the Euros together.
"In football, people move on, but you have friends in football that you have for life. They're very special because they understand the journey and they know what it takes to get to the top.
"To have ‘Less by my side since we were young girls has been really nice and hopefully we can keep making lots more memories – and keep winning trophies."
England’s Alessia Russo (left) and Ella Toone react as they speak to the media at St George’s Park, Burton upon Trent.
England’s Alessia Russo (left) and Ella Toone react as they speak to the media at St George’s Park
(Image: PA Wire/PA Images)
International breakthrough
‘Tooney’ and ‘Less’ have been joined at the hip all the way to the top with the Lionesses, representing England at the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women's World Cup in Jordan, six years before they took to the hallowed Wembley turf in the 2022 Euros final.
United attacker Toone made her U19 debut in a UEFA Women's Under-19 Championship qualification match against Kazakhstan, scoring twice in a 9-0 win.
And in 2018, she made the England under-20 squad for the FIFA Women's U20 World Cup but was agonisingly ruled out through injury.
Fast forward to September 2020, she received her first senior national team call-up, making her debut in February 2021 as a half-time substitute, scoring a penalty in the Lionesses’ 6-0 friendly win over Northern Ireland.
The playmaker netted a hat-trick the following October in a 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification game against Latvia, announcing Tooney from Tyldesley to the world.
But it was the biggest stage of them all where Ella Toone with the Manchester twang became a household name across the country.
Coming on as a substitute at 1-0 down against Spain in the 2022 Euros quarter-final, she scored one of the most important goals of her career, equalising in the 84th minute to force extra-time.
Toone was heralded as an impact player back then, also coming from the bench in the final against Germany to finish Keira Walsh’s majestic through-ball with aplomb.
She has built up a reputation for scoring when it matters, stepping in for the suspended Lauren James in England’s 3-1 semi-final triumph over co-hosts Australia in the 2023 Women’s World Cup.
Her thunderbolt strike into the top corner to open the scoring summarised what she can bring to the Lionesses team, although she was unable to repeat the feat in the final as the Lionesses were beaten 1-0 by Spain.
Recent ups and downs
Toone continued her habit of scoring on the biggest of occasions by curling in a sumptuous opening goal in Manchester United’s 4-0 victory over Tottenham in the 2024 Women’s FA Cup final that gave them their first major trophy.
Climbing Wembley’s steps to collect the Cup will have been a proud moment for the lifelong United nut, but the year turned out to be bittersweet for Toone.
In September, she revealed her father had died of prostate cancer just three days before what would have been his 60th birthday and admitted to struggling to process her grief in the months that followed.
She told the Players’ Tribune: "When he passed, it was a big shock, even to some of the people closest to him, because no one hardly knew he was ill.
"People ask me now, 'Why didn't you tell us?' And I'm like, I didn't know either. I didn't know half of it…
"For the past few months, I've been trying to figure it all out, trying to get unstuck. It's still raw. I still feel the pain digging in, the gutting feeling of not having him here anymore.
"Even now, sometimes I think he's going to come back, like he's right in the other room waiting for me to come around the corner so he can have a joke or some banter … he was always on a wind-up."
Ella Toone pictured with her family
Ella Toone pictured with her family(Image: Ella Toone Instagram)
A torn calf in November ended an incredible run of 96 consecutive league appearances for United, but she soon regained her form after her return, scoring a hat-trick against Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium in January.
Following the international retirement of Fran Kirby, Toone is one of several Lionesses competing for the ‘No.10’ slot in the side and she did her chances no harm at all by scoring two superb goals in their final warm-up against Jamaica.
She is a player who thrives in the big moments and, with her dad no doubt looking on, you can count on her coming up trumps should such a moment come her way again at the Euros in Switzerland.