Demi Stokes, aka Lioness, a professional footballer, exemplifies power and fitness, but she was once a small, 3lb baby born 10 weeks premature.

“I was actually born on the toilet,” the Manchester City and England star, 30, admits. “So it was a bit of a crazy entry into the world.” Stokes, like hundreds of preterm newborns born in the UK each year, spent some time in a neonatal hospital before being discharged. She realised how worried her mother must have been only after becoming a mom herself.

Who is Demi Stokes?

Demi Lee Courtney Stokes is a professional English footballer who now plays for Manchester City and the England national team. Stokes was born on December 12, 1991 in Dudley, West Midlands, England‎. Stokes and Katie Harrington are in a same-sex relationship. The pair welcomed a child in 2022.

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Stokes joined Sunderland at the age of 16 and was a major player of the team that reached the Women’s FA Cup Final in 2009, the same year she helped England win the U-19 Euro in Belarus. Stokes gained a scholarship at the University of Florida and made her senior England debut in a 1-1 draw with Norway in January 2014, in her fourth and final year on the other side of the Atlantic.

Three months after her debut, she was a member in Mark Sampson’s team and scored her sole England goal to date in the 9-0 rout of Montenegro.

After not being picked for Canada 2015, where England finished third, Stokes roared back and earned a spot in the team for Euro 2017 and the 2019 competition, when the Lionesses advanced to the semifinals in both.

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Stokes played a part in England’s under-19 team’s 2-0 victory over Sweden in the championship game in Belarus in July 2009. She assisted England in reaching the 2010 UEFA Women’s Under-19 Championship final in Macedonia, where they lost to France for the championship. Stokes began two of England’s three games at the 2010 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup in Germany later that summer.

She was a member of the England team that won the UEFA Women’s Euro 2022 in June 2022.