Beth Mead

In February 2020, Mead joined #WePlayStrong, a social media and vlogging campaign which was launched in 2018. The campaign's "...aim is to promote women's football as much as we can and to make people aware of women's football, really". "The ultimate goal is to make football the most played sport by females by 2020." The series, which also originally included professional footballers Lisa Evans, Sarah Zadrazil, Eunice Beckmann, Laura Feiersinger and now also includes Petronella Ekroth and Shanice van de Sanden, follows the daily lives of female professional footballers.

By the 2018–19 season, Mead had fully reinvented herself as a versatile winger under Joe Montemurro and built up a good relationship on the pitch with Arsenal leading goalscorer Vivianne Miedema combining nine times to score, more than any other duo. She also broke the record for most assists in a single season with 12 and created more chances than any other Arsenal player with 54. She finished third in the WSL for total goal contributions with 7 goals along with her 12 assists. Mead capped a great season off by scoring the 3rd goal in Arsenal's 4–0 title clinching win at Brighton and Hove Albion on 28 April 2019.

Mead signed a new long-term contract with Arsenal on 28 November 2019. She suffered an injury during a 3–2 league win against Liverpool on 13 February 2020. A week later, Arsenal announced that she had injured her medial collateral ligament, which led to her being omitted from the England squad for the 2020 SheBelieves Cup.

In April 2018, Mead made her debut for the senior England women's national football team as a substitute in a 0–0 2019 FIFA Women's World Cup qualification draw with Wales in Southampton. She started her first match in September 2018, scoring twice in England's 6–0 win over Kazakhstan in Pavlodar.

On 24 January 2017, it was announced that Arsenal Ladies had signed Mead on an undisclosed-length full-time deal. At Arsenal, summer 2017 signing Vivianne Miedema soon occupied the centre-forward berth, so Mead had to play as a winger instead: "I'd played No 9 all my career until I came to Arsenal. I was a bit annoyed that I wasn’t playing No 9, because I thought that was my best position. But now I really enjoy playing on the wing. I can get involved, run at people, bring other people into play." Arsenal won the 2017–18 FA WSL Continental Tyres Cup with Mead scoring in the knockout rounds against her former club Sunderland in the Quarter Final and against Reading in the semi final. Mead finished the 2017–18 season as Arsenal's top goalscorer in the league with 8 goals and was voted Arsenal's player of the season. Despite this, Arsenal missed out on qualification to the 2018–19 Champions League. On missing out on Champions League qualification, Mead said, "It’s a bit frustrating, we had a few results this season where we slipped up and that was our fault. That took it out of our own hands today and Manchester City deserved to finish above us in the end."

In her first match at the top level, Mead scored in Sunderland's shock 2–1 win over reigning champions Liverpool. On 19 July 2015, Mead scored a hat-trick against league leaders Chelsea, making her the league-leading scorer with eight goals. Earlier that week, Mead avoided injury despite rolling her car three times while trying to avoid a deer. The following week, she scored twice in a 4–1 win at Bristol, sending Sunderland to the top of the WSL 1. She ended the 2015 season as leading goalscorer in the WSL1 with 12 goals in 14 appearances.

Mead began her youth career at California Girls FC before joining Middlesbrough F.C. Centre of Excellence at age 10 before moving at age 16 to Sunderland, then in the FA Women's Premier League. In her first season she scored 23 goals in as many games, and ended the season with 29 goals in all competitions, followed by 30 goals in 28 matches the following season, and 15 goals in the 2014 FA WSL season to lead Sunderland to promotion to WSL 1. Although Mead turned professional upon Sunderland's promotion, she resolved to finish her final year at University. She also agreed to work as a barmaid in her local pub during the off-season, as a courtesy to the owners who had previously provided her with sponsorship funding.

Mead has represented England at every age level from under-15, and played in all three England under-20 matches at the 2014 FIFA U-20 Women's World Cup where she scored a long-range goal against Mexico.

Bethany Jane Mead (born 9 May 1995) is an English footballer who plays as a forward for Arsenal and the England national team.