Sometimes home isn’t so much a place, as it is a feeling you carry inside of you. The illustrious career of England defender Lucy Bronze has taken her from Alnwick on England’s stormy North Sea coast, to where she lives today, beside the paradise beaches of Barcelona.
In between, there have been stop offs at an all-female youth academy in North Carolina and the all-conquering women’s team in Lyon. The fuel powering this journey has been a fierce passion for football that began back in the school playground, where as an 11-year-old she’d spend lunchtimes competing against her brother and his friends – boys two years her senior.
Bronze thrived. Soon, she was joining them for training at nearby Alnwick Town FC. Her coach there was the first to predict she’d one day play for England. “I was the most competitive, the most aggressive, the one who wanted to win everything more than anybody else,” Bronze remembers. “I think that’s what he saw and thought, ‘That’s what you need to make it to the top.’”
Bronze’s coach was right. The 11-year-old he had in training would go on to play for her country – she earned her 100th cap in October 2022. A few months earlier, she was winning the Euros with a glorious Lionesses side that captured the hearts of the nation.
As one of the team’s mainstays and most vocal leaders, Lucy has inspired a generation of girls and young women to follow their dreams in the game. It was a chance for her to pass on the inspiration she’d taken from the strong women in her own family. “Becoming a role model, I think it comes side by side with being successful,” she says. “To have a voice, to be heard, to stand up for other people… what my aunty and my mum did for me when I was 11, 12 years old, I’ve now got this responsibility to do it for the next lot of 11- and 12-year-old girls.”
But getting to the top has been a challenge, right from the get-go. Official rules don’t allow girls and boys to play together on mixed teams past the age of 12. This meant Lucy had to quit her hometown club and instead start making the two-hour round-trip – three nights a week – to join training for the women’s side at Blyth Town. Early on, she had to get used to travelling for her passion.
On Blyth’s muddy training pitches, Bronze first met fellow Lionesses-of-the-future Jordan Nobbs and Demi Stokes, while they were all still schoolgirls. But Bronze’s own career stalled. A series of long-term injuries as a teenager – including one so bad it required four surgeries on her leg – left her doubting for the first time whether she was destined for the top. Meanwhile, her teammates were getting fast-tracked into the England setup. It was hard to take.
But Bronze’s middle name is literally ‘Tough’ and she’s spent her life living up to that. While recovering from injury, she worked in a fast food place and ground her way through a uni degree while battling to get her own career back on track. Almost ten years after leaving the pizzeria, she was taking delivery of the Best FIFA Women’s Player award in 2020.
Along the way, Bronze has found ‘home’ in many places. But it’s always been her iron-willed determination to play football that has helped her find it.
Credits
Director CHILD
Fashion Louis Prier Tisdall
Executive Creative Director Georgina Bacchus
Senior Account Director Tilly Donohoe
Production Claire Nolan, Amy Wilson and Jacob Trappitt
Talent Lucy Bronze