One Direction star, Liam Payne, was dating American model, Kate Cassidy, for two years before his tragic death in October in Argentina when he fell from his hotel balcony
Liam Payne’s ‘ associates ‘ have accused his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, of ‘ cashing in ‘ on the star, five months after his tragic death,
Liam Payne’s ‘associates’ have accused his girlfriend, Kate Cassidy, of “cashing in” on the star, five months after his tragic death. The One Direction heartthrob had been dating the American model, 26, for two years before he died in October when he fell from the third floor of his hotel suite, aged 31.
Kate has paid tribute to Liam in a number of Instagram posts after attending his funeral in November to pay her respects to her boyfriend, who she was due to marry. However, there are suggestions that some of the singer’s acquaintances are not happy with the model’s behaviour since the tragic loss, with some accusing Kate of “cashing in” on the star’s death.
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Liam Payne, was dating American model, Kate Cassidy, for two years before his tragic death in October(Image: Getty Images)
Following reports that Kate had been politely asked to leave the London home she shared with Liam by his parents after pictures of the model with a number of suitcases outside the property were published after he died, one associate of the singer’s told Daily Mail: “It feels like she is cashing in, it’s very sad to watch. She was a fan and now she seems to raise his name whenever it suits her.”
Kate’s Instagram page is full of photos of Liam, including shared unseen snaps of the star, which she posted while celebrating her birthday last week. Alongside photos of the pair, she wrote: “Thankful for another year, and reflecting on the beauty of 25 – it’s a chapter that will always be a part of me. Here’s to 26”.
One photo was of the couple at a wedding, another was of them at Disneyland. The week before, Kate had mentioned Liam again as she filmed a TikTok video while looking through her stuff around the time of the star’s death.
Zooming in on a yellow frock and a pair of white stilettos – which she had worn to a wedding with Liam in August, Kate became emotional as she recalled the nuptials, and shared a memory of ‘ dancing the night away ‘ with Liam.
It’s not the first time Kate, who says she “manifested” her childhood crush after meeting Liam at a restaurant in the US where she was working as a waitress, has taken to sharing her private moments with the Wolverhampton-born star.
Just three days after his death, she posted a treasured note from the dad-of-one, talking about their marriage, which read: “Me and Kate to marry within a year/engaged &, together forever 444. Liam”.
She added: “I know we’ll be together forever, but not in the way we had planned. You’ll always be with me. I’ve gained a guardian angel”.
However, claiming that Kate is ‘ helping her brand ‘ by continuing to mention Liam, his former associate said: “Nobody has a problem with Kate being upset at Liam dying, but every time she shares a picture or video of him it helps her brand, gets her new followers. All those things help make someone’s profile bigger and bigger.
” You have to wonder whether she is doing it for herself because it certainly isn’t for Liam or his family.
“It’s all starting to feel rather unsavoury”.
The Mirror has contacted Kate for comment on this story.
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The 1987 order from the German government was clear: Shut down your operations in Libya. For Lutz Kayser, this marked the heartbreaking finale to his private rocketry enterprise, OTRAG, and to his dream of “making access to space affordable for everyone”.
Founded in Germany and based, in a series of bizarre turns, first in Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo) and then deep in the Libyan desert, OTRAG had developed an IKEA-like concept for rocket design, using mass-produced modular components that could be assembled into spacecraft of various shapes and sizes.
The two African countries both offered potentially ideal conditions for rocket launching: vast, unregulated spaces far from prying eyes. But when United States and Israeli intelligence came to suspect that Libya was coopting the programme for its own military ends, it meant the end of the line for OTRAG, given that Kayser and his colleagues could face criminal charges in their home country had they persisted. In a final, devastating twist, all of OTRAG’s equipment was seized by Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, but its modular approach to rocketry would go on to influence later generations of aerospace players.
While government agencies sent Sputnik into orbit and put men on the moon, Kayser represented one of a succession of individual pioneers – incidentally all white and all male – who have endeavoured to conquer the skies despite being regularly dismissed by their contemporaries as absurd or deluded.
And although the second explosion this year of a SpaceX rocket presents another setback for CEO Elon Musk in his ultimate mission to colonise Mars, it is likely only a hiccup in the ongoing privatisation of aerospace, the roots of which go right back to the late 19th century.
Lutz Kayser in the control centre of the German aerospace centre in Lampoldshausen]File: OTRAG]
The Russian grandfather of the space age
Born in 1857, the Russian scientist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky is credited for laying the mathematical and theoretical foundations for rocketry. As the reclusive home-schooled child of a minor government official living in a log cabin about 200km (125 miles) southeast of Moscow, Tsiolkovsky developed an interest in mathematics and physics and then, reading the science fiction of Jules Verne, became enthralled by the possibility of space travel.
Although never formally educated, Tsiolkovsky went to Moscow and carried out his own research there under the influence of Nikolai Fyodorov, a proponent of “cosmism”, a philosophical movement at the time that integrated science, religion and , metaphysics , with a belief in the potential immortality of mankind and the harnessing of science for space exploration.
In contrast to the present archetype of “capitalist turned space crusader”, Tsiolkovsky went on to earn his living as a teacher in another remote part of southwest Russia. Beset by personal tragedies – including the suicide of his son, the loss of many of his research notes and manuscripts in a flood and the arrest of his daughter for revolutionary activities – Tsiolkovsky defied misfortune to publish almost 100 works on space travel and related subjects, including designs for rockets with steering thrusters, multistage boosters, space stations,  , airlocks for exiting a spaceship and closed-cycle biological systems to provide food and oxygen for , space colonies.
And in 1895, inspired by the newly constructed Eiffel Tower, Tsiolkovsky conceived the “space elevator”, a cable theoretically attached to the Earth somewhere along the equator and reaching well beyond the atmosphere, using centrifugal power from Earth’s rotation to counter downward gravity, keeping the cable upright and taut. The immensely long cable, according to Tsiolkovsky, would enable vehicles attached to the cable to carry people and cargo all the way up to a stationary space station and back again.
While that and many of his other ideas might seem far fetched even today, Tsiolkovsky is regarded as a theoretical grandfather of spaceflight. “Tsiolkovsky was the prophet of the Space Age”, Sergei Korolev, chief designer of the Sputnik-era Soviet space programme, wrote in his 1934 book Rocket Flight in the Stratosphere. “His ideas and calculations formed the foundation of modern astronautics”.
Konstantin Tsiolkovsky in his study in Russia in 1934]Feodosiy Chmil]
Inspiration at the top of a cherry tree
Tsiolkovsky died in 1935, and although he never obtained the means to put his ideas into practice, other space pioneers of that era were developing similar theories and trying to execute them. One such figure was Robert H Goddard, the American engineer who built and launched the world’s first liquid-fuelled rocket.
Goddard, born in Worcester, Massachusetts, in 1882, also had a deep fascination with science and mechanics from an early age. Like Tsiolkovsky, he too was galvanised by science fiction, writing in his diary as a teenager about the HG Wells novel The War of the Worlds sparking the idea of space travel in his imagination.
Goddard grew up in a comfortable home as the son of a businessman and conducted experiments with kites, balloons and homemade fireworks. While climbing a cherry tree in his back yard, aged 17, he had a kind of epiphany, imagining a rocket capable of reaching Mars. This vision stayed with Goddard throughout his career and was the motivation behind his scientific curiosity and his concept of space travel. He later wrote in an unpublished autobiography, “I was a different boy when I descended the tree, for existence at last seemed very purposive”.
While working on his doctorate in physics at Clark University in Massachusetts, Goddard began experimenting with solid and liquid fuel propulsion, believing that rockets could be used for high-altitude research, atmospheric studies and eventually exploration of space.
He obtained patents in 1914 for a multistage rocket and a liquid-fuelled rocket engine and five years later published A Method of Reaching Extreme Altitudes, a groundbreaking book that outlined his theories on spaceflight, for example, that a rocket could function in the vacuum of space.
A security guard in front of billboards featuring , Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, father of Russian astronautics, at the Wuhan Spaceflight Exhibition on September 29, 2005, in Wuhan in China’s Hubei Province]China Photos via Getty Images]
Goddard faced considerable scepticism from both his peers and the media. “He does not know the relation of action to reaction”, a 1920 New York Times editorial mocked, “and of the need to have something better than a vacuum against which to react – to say that would be absurd. Of course, he only seems to lack the knowledge ladled out daily in high schools”.
Unfazed by the criticism, Goddard countered to a reporter: “Every vision is a joke until the first man accomplishes it. Once realised, it becomes commonplace”.
On March 16, 1926, Goddard succeeded in launching the world’s first liquid-fuelled rocket in Auburn, Massachusetts. Nicknamed “Nell”, the rocket flew for about 2.5 seconds, reaching a height of 12.5 metres (41ft) – seemingly unremarkable now but identified as a seminal moment in the evolution of rocketry.
Goddard went on to work with the US military on rocket-assisted takeoff systems for aircraft.
Robert H Goddard in his rocket workshop in Roswell, New Mexico, US in the late 1930s]Smithsonian’s National Air and Space Museum]
He died in 1945, not living long enough to learn that German scientists captured during World War II had revealed that the Nazi V-2 rocket programme was heavily influenced by Goddard’s work. Upon their release, a number of those scientists were invited to join NASA, meaning that Goddard’s theories were ultimately applied in the US mission to put a man on the moon.
And Goddard would no doubt have been amused to read the retraction by The New York Times of its derisory 1920 editorial, published just prior to the Apollo 11 moon landing of 1969.
“It is now definitely established”, the Times editors wrote, “that a rocket can function in a vacuum as well as in an atmosphere”.
“The , Times , regrets the error”.
One of Goddard’s students of rocketry had been a man by the name of Edwin Aldrin, whose son Buzz Aldrin was an astronaut and the second person to walk on the moon after Neil Armstrong.
Today, Goddard is recognised as a visionary of the space age, and NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, is named in his honour.
A US postage stamp with an image of Robert H Goddard, who is credited with creating the world’s first liquid-fuelled rocket, circa 1964]Shutterstock]
Democratising space travel
As Goddard’s life was drawing to a close, another seminal character in private space exploration was still in his infancy. Born in Stuttgart, Germany, in 1939, Lutz Theodor Kayser was spellbound by rocketry from his early childhood. He idolised Wernher von Braun, leader of Germany’s V-2 guided missile programme during World War II, who later became famous for his role in NASA. Witnessing Russia’s 1957 launch of Sputnik I, the world’s first artificial satellite, Kayser became captivated by the emerging Cold War space race between the US and the USSR.
At the University of Stuttgart studying rocket propulsion, Kayser came to the conclusion that existing space programmes were overreliant on highly complex and expensive systems and that there existed a possibility of far simpler, cost-efficient modular rocket design – a flat-pack-like approach to rocketry that could potentially democratise space travel and bring it within the grasp of people around the world.
Kayser joined the Working Group for Rocket Technology and Spaceflight, a student-led organisation that designed small-scale rockets and conducted test launches. He also connected with leading German aerospace figures such as Kurt Debus, a former Nazi scientist who later became an important figure in NASA.
Kayser’s vision was to develop a low-cost space transportation system independent of government control, challenging the assumption that space exploration could only be managed by state-run agencies, such as NASA and the Soviet space programme.
A statue of rocket pioneer Robert Goddard at Roswell in the US state of New Mexico]File: Shutterstock]
In 1975, backed by private investors, Kayser founded OTRAG (Orbital Transport und Raketen AG – Orbital Transport and Rocketry Ltd) with a unique concept: Instead of building a single large, expensive spacecraft, the idea was to manufacture modular rocket segments that could be mass-assembled in different configurations, enabling space expeditions to be cheaper and more frequent.
However, OTRAG faced a challenge in that launching rockets required access to vast and unrestricted land tracts – not readily available in Germany or indeed anywhere in Western Europe – leading Kayser to embark upon a rather outlandish and controversial strategy. Introduced to President Mobutu Sese Seko of Zaire by a fellow German businessman, Kayser negotiated the leasing of a 100, 000sq-km (38, 600sq-mile) launch site in a remote and underpopulated region of that country, enabling OTRAG to conduct its tests free from any regulations and far from any unwanted scrutiny. That apparent solution turned out to be its downfall.
Initial OTRAG test launches were apparently successful, but both Western and Soviet intelligence agencies began to speculate that the operation was secretly developing military missiles – German arms development being an especially sensitive issue after World War II. Mobutu was pressured by both NATO and the Eastern Bloc to shut down the entire programme, and in 1979, OTRAG had no option but to leave Zaire.
Undeterred, Kayser searched for an alternative location and found a warm welcome in Libya, whose fiercely independent President Gaddafi was only too willing to defy Western powers and host such a grandiose aerospace project. The Libyan desert provided another optimal test site, again without much regulatory control.
Libyan workers assemble an OTRAG rocket]File: Frank Wukasch/SWR Lunabeach TV &, Media GmbH]
OTRAG conducted several test launches from the Sebha region of the Sahara, using multiple small engines, potentially enabling a “scalable” rocket system for various commercial or military applications.
But geopolitics interfered once again. The US and its NATO allies soon concluded that OTRAG’s technology could be applied to long-range ballistic missiles, and the CIA and Israel’s Mossad spy agencies both accused Libya of co-opting OTRAG for its own missile capabilities, potentially in league with North Korea and Pakistan.
By the mid-1980s, the resulting diplomatic and military pressure made it impossible for OTRAG to continue operating in Libya – hence the 1987 German government directive to cease all operations. The company shut down its base there in 1987, only for its assets to be seized by the Gaddafi regime, apparently, as suspected, to further its own missile development – an unsuccessful bid in the absence of Kayser’s blueprints and personal expertise.
This ended Kayser’s vision of accessible space travel, but surprisingly, he remained in Libya for another decade, teaching rocket science at a university in Tripoli. It is unclear why he chose to stay, but given the financial clout of Libya at that time, it could have simply been the temptation of a large, tax-free salary after his business losses.
Kayser withdrew from the public spotlight and died in 2017, aged 78, on a trip to India, but his work remains a notable chapter in the history of private rocketry. OTRAG is now recognised as a foundation stone of contemporary space travel, its impact seen for example in the “modularity” of SpaceX’s Falcon 9 rocket, which uses nine identical engines in its first stage, and in the now common aerospace strategy of using relatively cheap, over-the-counter equipment instead of more expensive proprietary components.
Pilot Mike Melvill celebrates after climbing out of the cockpit of Space Ship One after a successful test flight at Mojave Airport in May 2004]Bryan Chan/Los Angeles Times via Getty Images]
The commercial space industry is born
Commercialisation of the aerospace industry was kick-started in earnest by an American man called Elbert Leander “Burt” Rutan. Born in 1943 in Estacada, Oregon, the young Rutan inherited his dentist father’s passion for aviation, sketching futuristic aircraft designs, testing model gliders and experimenting with wind tunnels.
With a degree in aerospace engineering from California Polytechnic State University, Rutan went on to work as a flight test engineer at Edwards Air Force Base in California, where he gained experience with experimental aircraft and aerodynamics. He left the US air force in 1972 to found the Rutan Aircraft Factory in Mojave, California, aiming to produce easy-to-build, high-performance aircraft. Having succeeded with two planes – the light and fuel-efficient VariEze, and the ultra-lightweight Voyager – Rutan set his sights on space travel.
With funding from Microsoft co-founder Paul Allen – this connection between tech money and space travel being the shape of things to come – Rutan embarked upon Space Ship One, a “suborbital” spacecraft designed to go beyond the atmosphere but not make a full orbit of the Earth.
On June 21, 2004, SpaceShipOne became the first private spacecraft to reach outer space – that is, to get beyond Earth’s atmosphere – returning safely with a “feathering” re-entry system, allowing it to descend safely without complex heat shields.
The main building and control tower of the Mojave Air and Space Port at Rutan Field in June 2022]Shutterstock]
This achievement, followed by the equally successful Space Ship Two – which was subsequently used and developed by the British entrepreneur Richard Branson in his Virgin Galactic space tourism enterprise – heralded the present “corporatisation” of space travel, underwritten by the financial masters of the universe.
“Welcome to the dawn of a new space age”, declared Branson upon the successful touchdown of his touristic spacecraft Galactic 01 on June 29, 2023 – provided, of course, that you have $600, 000 for the suborbital ride. The 72-minute voyage takes passengers about 85km (53 miles) high, where they can experience weightlessness and see the curvature of the Earth.
The corporate space race is now in full thrust, and it is perhaps only a matter of time before Musk and his archrival, Jeff Bezos, fulfil their respective ambitions to dispatch millions of human workers to the moon and onwards, begging the question: Is an interplanetary commute any more desirable than the kind we put up with here on Earth?
Gardening TV legend Alan Titchmarsh has revealed how a major decision by his daughters Polly and Camilla led to them feeling ‘ relieved ‘ following a childhood struggle
Alan Titchmarsh has opened up on how a big change has affected his daughters(Image: Jeff Spicer, Getty Images)
Alan Titchmarsh has joked that his daughters breathed a sigh of relief when they took their husbands ‘ surnames after getting married.
Renowned gardening presenter Alan explained that shedding the burden of his famous name came as a “relief” to his daughters Polly and Camilla.
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In a candid conversation with Mark Wogan on the Spooning with Mark Wogan podcast, the 75-year-old broadcaster shared his thoughts on how his celebrity status affected his daughters and the dynamics within their family.
Alan explained: “I think what happens is because, as you say, both our two names are quite identifiable. I think my two daughters were so relieved when they got married that they could change their name.
” I think what they found a bit easier was it didn’t suddenly come upon them, I was on television when they were born, so it was always there as you were, but it was difficult for them I think. “
The TV personality also touched on how his fame made his daughters’ school days more challenging. They were forced in some ways to be cautious when choosing friends, in case some were only befriending them to get close to the renowned presenter, reports Gloucestershire Live.
Alan spoke of his relationship with his daughters during the podcast
Titchmarsh reflected:” It was hard for them, I think one of the things they found difficult at school, though they have never to this day ever complained to me or said, ‘ You don’t ‘ know how difficult it was’.
“I think they had to be a little bit more careful about if their friends were choosing them because of me and mercifully, it appears not to have been the case, they’ve had some very good friends”.
Alan Titchmarsh has recently shared more about the affection he holds for his daughters, with the well-known horticulturalist expressing how they can still tug at his heartstrings.
Speaking to The Times, Alan confessed that despite his children now being in their 40s, he continues to keep the bedrooms at home ready, complete with their names on the doors, just in case they decide to visit.
Reflecting on fatherhood, the gardening expert penned in the past: “Fathers of sons have expectations. Fathers of daughters have worries.
” You worry about them all the time. I mean, not in a paranoid way, because I delighted in their company and they’re now mums themselves and I’ve got four grandchildren.
“But you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child and that spreads to grandchildren as well”.
It’s 65 years ago this week that the boot, worn by millions of Brits from policemen to punks, goths to New Romantics, was launched in Northamptonshire.
TV presenter Rachel Riley wearing a pair of bright pink Dr Martens(Image: Publicity Picture)
Defeated Germany was still in ruins when one of Hitler’s soldiers, fresh back from the battlefield and still using his standard-issue military boots, came up with something which would soon become as quintessentially British as London buses and red telephone boxes.
The story of Dr Martens, first launched 65 years ago this week, may surprise many of the millions of Brits who have worn them down the last six decades, from policemen to punks, goths and New Romantics. After breaking his foot while skiing, Klaus Marten from Munich, who had spent the war working as an army doctor, carried on wearing his Nazi boots – the best footwear he had – but they were so stiff and uncomfortable it soon became unbearable to walk.
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A group of Skinheads at Meadow Park Football Ground in Borehamwood in their DMs in September 1975(Image: Popperfoto via Getty Images)
Klaus – who had previously worked as a cobbler – redesigned the army boot with air-cushioned soles and soft leather, then started taking other discarded Bundeswehr boots and doing the same.
In 1959, Bill Griggs, whose family had a shoe company in the small Northamptonshire town of Wollaston, spotted his ‘ orthopaedic shoe ‘ in a trade magazine and bought the patent, adding the iconic yellow stitching and a metal toe cap. The boot – called the Dr Martens Airwair 1460, the number representing April 1, 1960 when it was first launched – became an instant success, but not yet with young rebels.
Michael Beverland, a marketing professor at the University of Sussex says they “became the footwear of choice for Britain’s working class, donned by factory workers, miners and policemen” and they were “comfortable, inexpensive, and shock- and oil-resistant”.
It wasn’t until The Who guitarist Pete Townshend wore a pair of Dr Martens – back then priced at £2 – on stage at a gig in London in 1966 that everything changed. Almost overnight they became a symbol of resistance and rebellion. “I was sick of dressing up as a Christmas tree in flowing robes that got in the way of my guitar playing. So I thought I’d move on to utility wear,” he later said, adding that the air-cushioned soles helped him bounce around on stage.
Townshend was also instrumental in creating one of the defining images of 70s pop culture, when in 1975, rock opera movie Tommy featured Elton John in a giant pair of Docs. The boots stood four and a half feet high and the singer had to wear them attached by callipers that allowed him to move as if on stilts.
The giant Docs worn by Elton John are now in a museum(Image: Getty Images)
In fact, getting to keep the oversized boots was the condition that persuaded Elton, one of the decade’s biggest stars, to take the lead role. They are now on display in Northampton Museum’s shoe gallery.
By then, a new subculture had taken hold. Like the rock rebels, the punks chose fashion that made a statement about freedom from authority, so they wore Mohawks, safety pins, and Dr Martens – especially after the Sex Pistols ‘ volatile bassist Sid Vicious began wearing them. They were also adopted by mods and glam rockers, psychobillies and goths, again led by the artists who defined the movements, like Siouxsie and the Banshees and David Bowie.
But it was members of the emerging skinhead movement who would be the most feared wearers. They emphasised the steel toecap by cutting the leather off the front, and would ‘ christen ‘ their boots with the blood of victims of a kicking.
It was because of their use by skinheads as a weapon, albeit a minority, that Dr Martens became associated with violence during the 1970s. But the footwear was, ironically, also being worn by the police they were clashing with. That movement introduced the colour code for laces: white for white pride, red for neo-Nazis, and blue meant the wearer had killed a police officer.
Madness later launched a limited edition 1460 boot embossed with the band’s logo(Image: PA Archive/Press Association Images)
The boot’s image nearly failed to recover, but by the 80s Docs underwent another revival, led by grunge artists like Kurt Kobain, as well as bands such as Madness and The Specials during the 2 Tone and Ska revival – again as a nod to their working class roots.
And they once again became synonymous with resistance, when they were worn by protestors during national strikes against the Thatcher government’s policies. “That’s what is so great about Dr Martens”, says Mr Beverland. “Everyone can appropriate the brand and make it a symbol for whatever cause they are fighting for. It’s incredibly versatile”.
That continued in the 90s, when DMs gained significant popularity in America, with bands like Alice in Chains, Nirvana and Pearl Jam ensuring Docs found a whole new generation of fans. Actress Demi Moore and supermodel Kate Moss were often seen wearing them, frequently along with a cut-out dress, as part of the grunge aesthetic. In turn, it made them the footwear of choice for festival goers.
Britpop band Blur wore Doc Martens
And the company sponsored the Glastonbury and Reading music festivals between 1997 and 1999. Even the Pope – John Paul II – became a fan, in 1996 ordering 100 pairs of DMs for himself and Vatican staff, including the Swiss Guards.
The boots then became part of Britpop, with bands like Blur, Oasis and Pulp often seen wearing them, while Docs even managed to step inside the House of Commons, when Tony Benn was photographed wearing them in Parliament.
Later, at the age of 85, he said: “My sons told me about Dr Martens back in the 70s and I found they were very comfortable. I have been wearing them ever since”.
The turn of the millennium, however, saw a slump in sales, as other shoes took the limelight. Close to bankruptcy by 2003, the company was forced to close all its British factories, except for one in Northampton, and moved production to Asia.
Cher Lloyd performed at T4 on The Beach in Weston-super-Mare wearing them(Image: PA)
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The company was sold to investment group Permira in 2013 – just as Miley Cyrus wore Docs while riding naked on a rocking ball. Other celebrities, like British model Agyness Deyn and pop star Rhianna also gave Docs a new lease of life, and the brand entered yet another era of reinvention.
Between 2013 and 2021 Dr Martens’ sales increased by a massive 383%, and last year they sold 11.5million pairs around the world. Now part of the wardrobe of countless stars, from Dua Lipa and Cher Lloyd to Tyler, The Creator and Brooklyn Beckham, sixty-five years on, the boot meant for factory workers continues to stamp its indelible print on the world.
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Lioness legend Toni Duggan shocked fans last year when she announced that she was retiring from football but just six months later, she has revealed she’s heading back onto the pitch
Toni Duggan opens up about retirement
Toni Duggan admits that just six months after announcing her retirement from football, she’s eager to get back onto the pitch. The former Lioness star, 33, left fans shocked when she announced her retirement in September 2024 following a career spanning 17 years. At the time, Toni admitted her career had been “more than” she could “ever have dreamed of”.
She played in the World Cup semi-finals, as well as the Champions League finals and some of the biggest games in domestic football. Aged 27, she told reporters her biggest fear was “retirement.” But now, the Liverpudlian is raring to go as she takes up a new role in football.
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Toni will join the likes of her fellow Lioness, Jill Scott, as well as names including Louis Tomlinson, Sam Thompson and Olympian Sam Quek taking part in Soccer Aid for UNICEF this year. “I don’t know if its excitement or nervousness to be honest,” she exclusively told the Mirror.
Speaking at the press launch at Manchester’s Hotel Football, overlooking the mammoth Old Trafford, she went on to say: “I don’t know what shape or condition I’m going to be in after having a baby. I’ll do some training before it but I can’t wait, the type of players that are playing as well and to be training, never mind playing out there with them.
” I’m really looking forward to it. “But this time around, Toni’s young daughter, Luella, who she gave birth to in March 2023 will be in the stands with her family, cheering on the legend”. The baby will be there, all my family will be there, “she said before adding:” As they was during my career.
“They’ll all be looking forward to having a little giggle at me too.” Toni admits getting to three semi-finals with England is one of the stand out moments from her career that she will always look back fondly on. “I think for me, the 2015 World Cup in Canada, when we won that Bronze medal, I felt like that was the real start of the Lionesses.
Toni admits getting to three semi-finals with her Lioness teammates will always be one of her career highlights(Image: Getty Images)
” What they’ve gone on to achieve since then, I’m so proud of the girls and getting over the line and winning the European Championship. But just being a part of that and being part of the change, seeing the new heights that women’s football has reached now. I’m so proud to be part of that journey. “
While she admits she’s happy that women’s football is finally taking centre stage, she” loved “being part of the fight before the Lionesses were given the recognition they deserved”. There’s still a long way to go, “Toni said. She added:” But I’m so proud to sit at home and see the stadiums sold out.
“The girls getting the recognition they finally deserve and it’s the people before me that didn’t get them opportunities. Just to create pathways for the young girls coming through, clear pathways and opportunities to be a full time professional footballer, as the lads can be”.
Her young daughter will be proudly watching on from the stands on June 15(Image: The FA via Getty Images)
This year, Soccer Aid will take place at Old Trafford but Toni feels no rivalry, despite having previously played for Manchester City. “No, it’s fine,” she laughed before explaining: “Obviously I played a lot of my career at Manchester City. I think Old Trafford is a great stadium, I’ve been here before when it’s been held here in the past, the support has been brilliant.
“I’m looking forward to getting out on the pitch and seeing all the fans cheering and getting behind us.” Being from the North West, she admits being “so proud” as supporters often rally behind their own. “Coming from Liverpool myself, everyone knows how much football and the clubs mean to the city, I’m sure it’ll be no different here in Manchester,” she said.
” I’m happy Paul Scholes is on my team, hopefully he can give me a little assist, “Toni joked. She continued:” I’m really looking forward to it. It’s a great occasion, raising loads of money and having a little bit of a laugh along the way. “
Taking part in Soccer Aid has a whole new meaning for Toni now that she’s a mum. “It resonates a bit more because I’ve got my little daughter, she’s only one,” she said. She went on to say: “We don’t realise how lucky we are and how much children around the world really need our support. Something so little from us can do so much for them, hopefully we can raise a lot more money as we have done in the past. Really, really proud to be a part of it.”
Since launching in 2006, Soccer Aid has raised an astonishing £100 million for UNICEF, helping children and families across the globe. The money raised goes towards helping those often caught up in conflict, helping with education, housing and vital medical supplies.
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The match takes place on Sunday, June 15, at Old Trafford, Manchester. Tickets from £20 for adults and from £10 for juniors, and are available on the Soccer Aid for UNICEF website.
