'She was smoking the boys' - Keely Hodgkinson reveals when she knew schoolmate Ella Toone would be a star

Keely Hodgkinson has said that she always knew her schoolmate Ella Toone would be an England star, revealing that the Euro 2022 final goalscorer used to «smoke» the boys at football. The 800m world silver medallist and Manchester United forward were two years apart at Fred Longworth High School in Greater Manchester, forging a friendship on both the football pitch and in cross-country races. Ad/> The pair have each gone on to sporting stardom, with Hodgkinson securing Olympic silver at Tokyo 2020 last year and Toone brilliantly chipping home England's first goal in the Lionesses' 2-1 triumph over Germany at Wembley.

FootballLionesses forward Toone taking her chance on the main stage07/04/2021 AT 12:42 Hodgkinson has admitted that the pair's sporting prowess led to her being compared with her older schoolmate, and believes that there was never any doubt that Toone would make it. “She was two years older than me but somehow we just ended up getting on really well,” Hodgkinson said of her friendship with Toone after advancing to the final of the Commonwealth Games 800m. «I was always referred to as the ‘mini Ella’ growing up at school.

So we kept in touch from that and she was in Tokyo last year as well. »We are just two young girls living their dreams. “She used to play on our boys football team and she was smoking them, so there was absolutely no way she wasn’t going to make it.

“We did some cross-countries too. I always tended to beat her on the running, but she was naturally very good, she’s got a lot of talent.” England's European Championship win was their first major trophy. /> More than 87,000 were watching on at Wembley, a record for any Euros game, while the BBC's broadcast of the final was them most-watched