Georgia Marie Stanway (born 3 January 1999) is an English professional footballer who plays as an attacking midfielder for Frauen-Bundesliga club Bayern Munich and the England national team. Stanway has also represented England at various youth levels.
In 2016, Stanway was nominated for BBC Young Sports Personality of the Year and was also nominated for PFA Women's Young Player of the Year in 2017. In June 2018, she was named in the UEFA Women's Champions League squad of the season. In 2019, she was awarded PFA Women's Young Player of the Year.
Early years
Georgia Marie Stanway was born on 3 January 1999 in Barrow-in-Furness, in Cumbria, one of four siblings with three brothers. She began playing football at a young age, as it was what her brothers did, and at the age of three was training with them in an under-7 team, saying that at that age she "didn't know what I was doing, I was just kicking the ball, but I loved it." She continued playing for boys' teams until she was thirteen; in 2022, as part of the "Where Greatness Is Made" campaign, a plaque honouring Stanway was installed at Furness Rovers.
She represented Cumbria Schoolgirls in English Schools' Football Association competitions at regional level in 2013 and 2014; though the county team lost all their matches, Stanway was selected for the newly-created England Schoolgirls under-15 international squad that won the Bob Docherty Cup in 2014. She was the only player to score in all of their matches. Stanway then left Cumbria for Manchester aged sixteen to pursue a professional football career, joining Manchester City. In Manchester, she attended St Bede's College, as teammate Keira Walsh had before her.
Club career
Blackburn Rovers
Youth
Stanway started her career at Blackburn Rovers, playing through the youth system.
In the 2013–14 season she played for the under-15 team, making fifteen appearances and scoring ten of their twenty-two goals. At the end of the season in May 2014 she received the Under-15 Manager's Player award. She was with the under-17 team in the 2014–15 season, playing in fewer matches (fourteen) but managing to score thirty-one goals: among them were three hat-tricks, a super hat-trick, a match of five goals, and a double hat-trick. She scored once in the third round FA Girls' Youth Cup tie that they lost 2–3.
Senior, 2015
She made it into the senior squad as a teenager, eligible to play from the end of January 2015. She came on as a substitute in their Women's FA Cup third round tie in February, scoring towards the end of the match that they eventually lost 4–5 to Portsmouth. The same weekend, she played for the under-17 Blackburn side in their FA Youth Cup second round tie, scoring twice in a solid team victory.
She also featured in the FA Women's Premier League in 2015, debuting in the league in early March and nearly scoring. She opened her account with a brace in a 6–0 win in April; her next two goals came as the team's sole tally in losses before she managed another brace and an assist to help the team to a 4–4 draw in the last game of the season. With the first team she scored a total seven goals in six matches.
Manchester City
On 18 July 2015, Stanway completed a move to Manchester City. On 29 July, Stanway made her senior debut for Manchester City as a substitute in a 5–0 win over Durham in the Continental Cup. On 27 August, she scored her first goal in a 2–0 victory against Everton. She ended her maiden campaign with the club's Rising Star award. In 2016, she won the Nissan Goal of the Season award. In January 2017, she signed a new contract with the club.
Her performances in the 2017–18 season led her to be named in the UEFA Women's Champions League Team of the Season. The following season, she was awarded the PFA Women's Young Player of the Year award, and nominated for the Northwest Football Women's Rising Star Award.
On 17 November 2019, Stanway scored two goals before being sent off, after receiving two yellow cards, in a 5–0 league win against West Ham United. She began the 2020–21 season by scoring a brace in a 2–0 away league win against Aston Villa.