Millie Bright is an English professional football player who is considered to be one of the best defenders in women’s football. Bright plays for the Chelsea football club and the England national team having first started her career in 2009 for the Doncaster Belles at the age of 16. Currently 31 years old, she has recorded many achievements for both her counter and club including three league titles with Chelsea.
Millie Bright Biography And Her Health Issues As A Child
The footballer was born on 21 August 1993, in Chesterfield, a market town located in Derbyshire, England.
Just eight days after she was born, Millie started her battle with health challenges. She was diagnosed with pneumonia, a disease that tormented her for many years. She also had asthma.
Millie’s asthma was so terrible that she was in and out of hospital very frequently over the illness. However, she did not let asthma stop her from playing football. She revealed that her passion for the game is what kept her going even though it seemed like she was bound to not be an athlete.
The soccer star went to school at the Sheffield Road School in Killamarsh, a town in North East Derbyshire from 2000-2004. It was here that she developed a serious interest in playing football and even started playing with the boys during the break because there was no team for girls at the time.
When she left Sheffield, Millie Bright attended the Eckington secondary school and started having more quality playing time to train herself with the school team. She even began playing competitive games with them and developed into a strong player.
Her Early Footballing Days Showed Good Promises
Millie Bright loved football as a young girl and spent her early days playing for Doncaster Rovers Belles, a professional English women’s football club that happens to play in the FA Women’s National League North.
She showed strength and stamina at the back and won the heart of her coaches. She was also respected by her teammates. She especially put up a really strong performance in the second tier of the FA Women’s Super League that other clubs began to woo her immediately.
She also played for Leeds United after she was sent on loan from 2011 to 2012. In all, she showed signs that she would be a great player.
Bright Joined Chelsea in 2015
Millie Bright joined and signed to play for Chelsea L.F.C. in 2014 ahead of the 2015 season. The footballer was convinced to join Chelsea by Chelsea’s assistant manager, Paul Green who used to manage her when she was at Doncaster Rovers Belles.
She hit the ground running at Chelsea, putting up a very strong defense at the back. She helped the team finish second place during the regular season, ending with a 10–2–2. This feat helped Chelsea qualify for the 2016–17 UEFA Women’s Champions League for the second time ever in the club’s history.
At the end of her very first campaign for Chelsea Millie had already won both the WSL1 and Women’s FA Cup. In addition to this, it is on record that the defender featured in 26 of a possible 28 fixtures before proceeding to make her grand debut in the Champions League.
The next year in 2016, Millie gave even more to Chelsea. She grew stronger and began to start more matches than any other player in the club. She became so good that she got named the Chelsea Players’ Player of the Year at the end of the season.
At the start of the 2017 season, Millie signed a new three-and-a-half-year contract with Chelsea and proved her worth even more. She has been very instrumental to the Chelsea team and has been often described as a hard-tackler who happens to be one of the Club’s top ball-winners.
With more than 90 appearances to her name, she has recorded the following achievements with the Chelsea Women’s team:
- 4 FA WSL (2015, 2018, 2020, 2021)
- 2 FA Women’s Cup (20115,2018)
- 2 FA Women’s League Cup (2020, 2021)
- FA Community Shield (2020)
International Career
In her early days, Millie represented her country on different levels. She played for the England Under-17, Under-20, and Under-23 teams at various tournaments.
In September 2016, Millie made her first appearance for the senior women’s national team when the national coach, Mark Sampson called her up to feature for the Lionesses. She made her first appearance in a 2-0 win over Belgium. That same year, she was named the England Young Player of the Year because of her startling performances.
See Also: Abby Dahlkemper Bio, Stats, Current Teams, Salary, Height
Bright soon built a very strong place for herself in the senior national team becoming one of the most reliable defenders for the team, making a very strong impression in the 2017 Euros. She started every game for the team right to the semi-finals and ended the tournament with a mark of 9/10 for her stunning showing. She was rated 9/10 on the BBC Sports website.
More so, she was also part of the England team at the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup that was eliminated by the United States in the Semi-Final.
She has so far become very popular among football fans in England.
Here is a list of her individual achievements as a footballer:
- Vauxhall England Young Player of the Year (2016)
- FA WSL PFA Team of the Year (2018, 2020)
- FIFA FIFPro Women’s World11 (2020)
Height
The footballer stands at 1.78m in height. That translates to 5 ft 10 inches.
Millie Bright’s Net Worth
Bright has found success as a club player and as an international footballer. She is expected to have amassed quite a considerable amount of wealth during her career so far. Her latest net worth is estimated at $2 million, most of which she made from her career as a player.
More so, she takes home a salary of $43,000 as a Chelsea player.
Other Interesting Facts To Know About Millie Bright
1. Bright has two older sisters who also played football as kids
Millie Bright was brought up as the third of three kids. When she was little, she played football alongside her older sisters and they juggled it with horse riding. However, she is the only one who has gone professional. One of her sisters is a staff nurse at the Nightingale Hospital
2. She did not start her career as a defender
Even though she seems every bit of a natural defender, Millie Bright was not always a defender. In fact, she started out as a midfielder before she was later converted to a defender. She revealed that she watched John Terry’s videos to make herself a better defender.
3. Her mother is her biggest fan
Millie’s mother, Nicola Bright is recorded to be the biggest fan of the Chelsea player. In fact, when Millie began schooling at Sheffield Road School in Killamarsh, Nicola actually joined the school’s staff to be close to her daughter. Over the years, she has become Millie’s biggest fan.
In the same way, all other members of her family do not fail to support her. Her father, Steve Bright, grandfather Arthur Bramall, grandmother Margaret, uncle Andrew, and all other family members have always teamed together to support her.
4. Her grandfather worked as a coal miner
Arthur who is very close to his grandaughter used to work as a coal miner at the Rossington colliery in Doncaster. Her parents, on the other hand, ran a horse stable.
5. Millie Loved Horses
Apart from football, Millie also loved horses as a child and she still does. She is actually a talented horse rider at the moment because of the stable owned by her parents. She loved horses so much back in the day.
However, she admitted that when she started playing football, she found it really hard to juggle with the horses any further so she decided to give one endeavor her everything. She chose football.
6. She rejected Chelsea at first because she didn’t want to leave home
Because of her close, she was to her family, Millie rejected Chelsea when they first came for her as she wanted to stay close to home. However, after a year when Chelsea came again, she decided to go. She left home with tears on her face.
7. Meet her partner/boyfriend
Millie was once in a relationship with her former boyfriend, who according to sources worked as a First Assistant on the Pam Barton Course Royal Mid-Surrey Golf Club as of 2019.
Currently, however, she seemed to be in a relationship with a man known as Levi Crew. How they met and started dating is not known.
FA Women’s Cup: 2014–15, 2017–18, 2020-21
FA Women’s League Cup: 2019–20, 2020–21
FA Community Shield: 2020
UEFA Women’s Champion’s League runners-up: 2020-21
FA WSL PFA Team of the Year: 2017–18, 2019–20
FA Women’s Super League Player of the Month: December 2019
FIFA FIFPro Women’s World11: 2020, 2021
Arnold Clark Cup Golden Boot: 2022
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