The Crawley girl who’s now an England World Cup footballer – and a bronze medal winner too
Steve Leake normally writes for us about Crawley Town, but on this occasion he wants to change the subject – and tell us abour his grand-daughter Beth Humphrey… an England footballer.
I want to write about someone who is very special to me, my granddaughter Bethany Charlotte Humphrey, and please bear with me because it is also about football and having and living your dreams.
Beth came into this world on April 27, 2005, 14 weeks early, weighing the same as a bag of sugar, 17 months after Alex, who would have been her older brother but for the fact he arrived 15 weeks early – and that week made all the difference.
But 15 months after Beth was born, her younger brother arrived on the scene, premature by as much as she was and weighing about the same. Both Beth and Oliver have grown into healthy adults after a tortuous first six months of life and are now healthy individuals aged 21 and 19 respectively.
Both enjoyed playing and watching football, but it’s fair to say neither she nor Oliver had much choice. You may or may not know I have a slight interest in the game myself, which I have passed on to my three children and my two grandchildren, aided and abetted by my son-in-law Nick.
Beth got her first taste of playing for a team while at Hilltop School on the big 3G pitch by the stadium and from that moment she was hooked. She has gone on to play for Furngate mixed boys and girls team, Crawley United Girls, Crawley Wasps, AFC Crawley and is now at Sutton United.
She also played for her school team, Holy Trinity, and won herself a short cut in the lunch queue from Mr Mullineux for scoring the winner in a cup match from the edge of the box!
From starting with Sutton to when Beth started at the University at Guildford, she has also played for, and indeed still does play for, Surrey University – and earlier this year she applied for trials for the England six-a-side team. After a series of trials she was selected in the England squad for the WMF (World Mini Football) World Cup in Croatia – as was another Sussex Lioness, Ella Newman, from Eastbourne.
England’s first game, during which Beth came on as a sub a couple of times, was against Serbia and ended in a 3-0 defeat. My abiding memory of this game was seeing Beth, with her arms around her team-mates’ shoulders, singing “God Save the King” with gusto and a great big smile on her face.
The next game was against the Lebanon and England succumbed to two late goals and with that defeat faced the threat of elimination. Beth didn’t feature in that game.
Two games lost and two to play – against Slovakia and Czechia.
England needed to win both remaining games to stand a chance of qualifying for the semis and it seemed that if they did, they would face defending two-time champions USA. It was a tough ask but one that England answered with two 1-0 victories which put them in the box seat, with only Lebanon being able to stop them from progressing.
Lebanon’s opponents, Costa Rica, had lost all their matches up to then and out of the 36 goals scored by all the teams in the group stage, 30 had ended up in their net.
Costa Rica, however, beat the Lebanese 2-1, pitting England against the USA in the first semi.
The semi was more tense for the USA than they expected, and England rattled their cage. An England team that had only scored three goals and conceded five proved almost a match for a team that had scored 25 and let in only one in qualifying. The USA progressed to the final 1-0.
In the other semi Serbia beat Slovakia and in the final the Americans won 2-0, winning the title for the third time in a row.
Before that, the third-place match took place between England and Slovakia, with the Leake and Humphrey clans wishing they could be there to cheer Beth on.
She started and didn’t put a foot wrong before she was substituted – before Slovakia took the lead on the stroke of half-time through a powerful shot from Tamara Kramlikova.
The second half saw England equalise quickly through Savana Fearon.
England looked to have won it when Kendra Brown scored with two minutes left, but Tamara Kramlikova scored in injury time to take it to penalties – though it was penalties which resemble those used in Olympic hockey when the attacker dribbles from the halfway line and attempts to get it past the keeper.
Best of three decides it and when Jessica Francis-Weir and Brown scored for England and Anna Draper in the England goal saved both of Slovakia's attempts, England were bronze medalists.
A bronze medal won by a Crawley girl at a World Cup, and did I tell you? She’s my granddaughter.
If you see her at Broadfield, please say well done!