Ella Toone was 23 years old when her father, Nick, died from prostate cancer in September 2024. Eighteen months on, the Manchester United and England midfielder has chosen to confront her loss in public — through a new BBC documentary that follows her from the Lionesses’ Euro 2025 triumph in Switzerland to the quiet preparations for a wedding her dad will never attend.
“Grief and Goals: The Ella Toone Story”, airing on BBC One this week, captures the 26-year-old in moments she admits she would once have refused to share. There are training-ground tears at Carrington, a visit to her father’s graveside in Tyldesley, and a fitting for the wedding dress she will wear when she marries her partner, Joe Bunney, this summer. “Football has been the place I can go and forget for 90 minutes,” Toone says in the opening sequence. “But the second the whistle goes, it all comes back.”
A grief lived in public
Toone scored the opening goal in England’s Euro 2022 final win over Germany at Wembley, a chipped finish that has been replayed on a loop in the three-and-a-half years since. Her father, a season-ticket holder at Manchester United and the man who drove her to training as a child in Wigan, was in the crowd that day. By the time the Lionesses retained their European title in Basel last July, beating Spain on penalties, he had been gone for ten months.
The documentary shows Toone walking out at St Jakob-Park with a black armband and her dad’s initials stitched into her boots. She came on as a 71st-minute substitute, set up Alessia Russo’s equaliser, and converted England’s third spot-kick in the shootout. Speaking to the camera in the tunnel afterwards, she says simply: “That one was for him.”
What makes the film unusual is its refusal to tidy grief into a redemption arc. Director Rebecca Lloyd-Evans, who also made the 2023 film on Beth Mead’s loss of her mother, follows Toone through a winter slump at United — three goals in 14 Women’s Super League appearances between October and February — and a brief period in January when she asked manager Marc Skinner for time away from the squad.
The weight of being the face of a team
Toone has played 67 times for England, scoring 25 goals, and is the only player to have started both the 2022 and 2025 European finals for Sarina Wiegman’s side. That visibility has costs the documentary makes plain. After her father’s death was announced, she received more than 40,000 social-media messages in 48 hours. Some were cruel. One section of the film shows her scrolling through replies on her phone in a hotel room in Marbella, where England were on a warm-weather camp, before putting it face down on the bed.
The Professional Footballers’ Association estimates that around one in four current Lionesses have lost a parent or sibling, a figure cited in the documentary by PFA welfare lead Michael Bennett. Mead lost her mother June to ovarian cancer in 2023. Goalkeeper Mary Earps spoke last year about the death of her grandfather during the 2023 World Cup. Toone’s openness, Bennett argues, gives a generation of younger players permission to grieve loudly rather than quietly.
- 67 senior England caps, 25 goals — the joint-third highest tally among current Lionesses
- Scored in the 2022 Euros final and assisted in the 2025 final
- 14 WSL appearances, 3 goals between October 2024 and February 2025
- Featured in BBC Sport’s most-watched women’s football interview of 2025 (4.1m views)
What comes next
Toone marries Bunney, a former Northampton Town and Bury defender, on 12 July at a venue in Cheshire. The documentary closes with her walking through the empty function room with her mother, Carol, choosing where her father’s photograph will sit during the ceremony. “He won’t walk me down the aisle,” she says, “but he’ll be there. He’s been there for every goal I’ve ever scored.”
On the pitch, the immediate horizon is the 2027 World Cup in Brazil. Wiegman’s Lionesses begin qualifying in October against the Republic of Ireland, and Toone — now the senior creative midfielder in a squad shorn of Fran Kirby and Jill Scott — is expected to play a central role. United, meanwhile, finished third in the WSL this season and face Chelsea in next month’s FA Cup final at Wembley, the ground where Toone’s career, and her father’s proudest day, intersected.
“I used to think being strong meant not crying,” Toone says in the film’s final scene. “Now I know it means showing up anyway.”
Sports journalist and editor at SportsPortal.net. Covers cricket, football, Formula 1, tennis, and basketball with a focus on how global sports connect with Pakistani audiences. Follows the PSL, Pakistan national cricket team, Premier League, and major international tournaments. Has reported on sports for digital audiences since 2021.
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