Izzy christiansen
No one knew, Izzy Christiansen reflects, of the secret significance of her best game in an Everton shirt and why she had spent the week leading up to the Merseyside derby at Anfield taking things hour by hour, day by day.
Christiansen’s auntie Lucy had passed away a week earlier. Among those Lucy left behind were her two children and Christiansen and her two siblings, whom “she’d treat like her own”. “I look back at the pictures of that game and I had people in the stands — her best mates, family — and seeing them, and them seeing my face… I was so happy they were there,” says Christiansen, 32. “I just felt this whole massive release of so many different types of energy coming out on that pitch in front of 28,000 Liverpool supporters.”
Lucy was 57 when she died of bowel cancer that would have been treatable had she spotted the symptoms earlier and recognised them for what they were. She was an architect who, in Christiansen’s words, was “full of life, super healthy, super happy, and one of those people who would have a go at everything”. Lucy and Christiansen’s mother were close and so, too, were Christiansen and Lucy. Christiansen is close to her nieces because “I want to be to them what she was to me”.
She has wanted to raise money for a bowel cancer charity since and has fundraised for Bowel Cancer UK in her native Cumbria, but retirement brought the opportunity for something bigger.
Izzy Christiansen, right, retired in May 2023 (Emma Simpson – Everton FC via Getty Images)
Her team suggested the Bobby Moore Fund, an arm of Cancer Research UK raising money for bowel cancer research that was set up by Moore’s widow, Stephanie, following her husband’s death aged 51 in 1993. The fund offered Christiansen a London Marathon place and for the past three-and-a-half months, she has been hitting the hills, joining running clubs and living her life glued to her running and fitness tracker apps. The fund and Christiansen recognised that her public profile would be particularly helpful in raising awareness of early symptoms: changes to toilet habits, blood when going to the toilet, bleeding from the anus, stomach pain and lumps, bloating and/or tiredness.
“When it was caught, it was too late,” Christiansen says of Lucy, “and then she was on a journey of decline.” For Christiansen, it meant balancing the pain of anticipatory grief with the practicalities of a high-performance environment at Everton’s Finch Farm, where she was captain and had to warn the manager, Brian Sorensen, that he might have to plan sessions without her. She would take walks around the training ground with the physio and team psychologists on days when she felt especially emotional. “I felt supported and felt safe, but equally, when you’re in a high-performing environment, it’s tough. It’s like a pressure cooker. I’m so driven and so determined.”
She was exiting the training pitch one day when she was beset with a feeling that “I was going to come back to my phone with bad news. I had a text from my mum, basically saying: ‘If you want to say goodbye, come now’. I just broke down in tears with the physio, but I didn’t do it in front of the girls. Then I just left and drove back up to Cumbria.”
She trained the next day — the Anfield match was the biggest of the season — but it was by no means the target that got her through. She couldn’t look that far ahead; it was about waiting, she says, until she could feel in herself that she was ready for the game. “You go through a lot of sleepless nights,” she says. “I suppose my way of dealing with that as an athlete was to carry on, but it hit me really hard, even though I knew it was coming.”
Everton won that derby 3-0. Lucy knew nothing about football but would talk about it for hours because she loved the way it made Christiansen light up. In hindsight, Christiansen wonders if those conversations schooled her in the art of “explaining football to people who don’t know it, simplifying something for a listener who can’t see the game” for her new career as a pundit. She also spoke at Lucy’s funeral. “I said that in the later stages of my career, I normally played about 57 minutes anyway,” Christiansen says. “I said I’d rather play 57 minutes and play my heart out than play the full 90 and be knackered at the end. I kind of made reference to that as her life and a lot of people said how lovely that was. That’s probably the thing that gives you the most peace: that they are at peace.”
Since hanging up her boots, Christiansen has remained impressively fit and is by now used to being on her feet for more than 20 miles. She ran most days in Australia when there as a pundit for the Women’s World Cup and it provided a breather for her between covering and preparing for matches.
GO DEEPER
Everton’s Izzy Christiansen on retirement, no regrets and plans for her TV career
She is more self-deprecating when it comes to her football skills, having played last month with colleagues from the BBC. “Somebody said to my agent: ‘I couldn’t get near her’,” she says. “But I felt terrible. The change of direction, the acceleration — it is amazing how quickly you lose that sharpness. I started stretching my hamstrings at a corner and Nedum Onuoha, who was on the team against me, was like: ‘Izzy – stop! Don’t get injured before the marathon playing five-a-side!’”
(Top photo: Alex Livesey — Danehouse/Getty Images)
