A closer look at Ellen White’s career following her retirement from football

Ellen White has announced her retirement from football as the Lionesses’ record goalscorer and one short of the overall England record.

White scored the last two of her 52 international goals as England won this summer’s European Championship and the Manchester City striker has now called time on her career shortly before the new Women’s Super League season.

Here, the PA news agency looks at White’s career.

White’s hat-trick in November’s astonishing 20-0 win over Latvia took her past Kelly Smith’s England record of 46 and she moved on to a half-century by scoring against Germany at the Arnold Clark Cup and North Macedonia in World Cup qualifying.

She netted twice in England’s 8-0 hammering of Norway at the Euros to bring Wayne Rooney’s national record of 53 goals tantalisingly within reach but missed several chances in the remainder of the tournament as she began to play second fiddle to super-sub Alessia Russo up front.

Smith had surpassed Kerry Davis’ mark of 44 goals for England and White surged past the pair after a series of inspirational performances – most notably at the 2019 World Cup, where she netted six times as England reached a second consecutive World Cup semi-final and had a potentially crucial seventh disallowed by VAR in that loss to the United States.

Her prolific form continued through the 2020 SheBelieves Cup and the current World Cup qualifiers, in which she scored 10 goals in eight appearances.

Having scored on her debut against Austria in 2010, she notched 17 goals in her first 26 caps to the end of 2013 before a spell out of the team and a goal drought.

Her goals in back-to-back European Championship qualifiers against Serbia in June 2016 were her first for England in nearly three years but