Beth Mead: Whitby-born Lioness is Yorkshire's Sports Performer of 2022

Definitely, is the answer.

For Beth Mead is a devout Yorkshirewoman and wears a white rose on her sleeve as proudly as she sports the three lions on her chest.

Which is probably one of the reasons why the public voted for the England footballer as Yorkshire’s Sports Performer of 2022.

It wasn’t a formality though, there was no foregone conclusion in the vote among readers of The Yorkshire Post as there was in the only slightly more glamourous awarding of the BBC gong.

Still, our readers acknowledged the hugely significant role Whitby-born Mead had played in the glass-ceiling shattering moment for women’s football when the Lionesses won the European Championships with a 2-1 win over Germany in front of nearly 90,000 at Wembley and millions watching at home.

Six goals in the tournament, plus four assists, were enough to earn her the top goalscorer accolade to go with the player of the tournament award she won, and not to mention, the gold medal for being part of the boundary-breaking women’s football team.

The goals continued to be banged in for her club side Arsenal, before an ACL injury last month brought an abrupt halt to a landmark year.

Fingers crossed she’s back fit and firing for next summer’s World Cup in Australia.

Born just outside of Whitby, Mead, pictured, played for local club Hinderwell before being spotted by Middlesbrough, then Sunderland, and then Arsenal.

"Prior to her turning professional,” wrote one entrant into our competition, “Beth used to work for us here at the Fox & Hounds, Dalehouse, Staithes.

"We are all so proud of what she has achieved.”

So is Yorkshire. Mead garnered 43 per cent of the vote but it wasn’t a landslide.

Coming in second with 36 per cent of the vote was Leeds cyclist Tom Pidcock, who is actually a former Yorkshire Sports Performer of the Year.

Probably best not to tell Pidcock he finished second. He hates losing. In another stellar year, the Olympic mountain bike champion from 2021 won the UCI world cyclo-cross title in January, which was some achievement, even if it lacked the global interest of what he accomplished in the summer.

Riding the Tour de France for the first time, the then-22-year-old produced a sensational stage win in the Alps, descending mountains at breakneck pace to win on the fabled Alpe d’Huez.

Third place went to up-and-coming cricketer Harry Brook, who was in stellar form for Yorkshire – our partners in this year’s Sports Performer search who offered T20 tickets to the winning voter – and then just recently England, for the centuries he smashed in Pakistan.

US Open champion Matt Fitzpatrick, wheelchair sprinter Hannah Cockroft and England cricketer Jonny Bairstow took home a few votes, but no one could stop Beth Mead.