Arnold Clark Cup: England & Canada have a habit of stealing each other's thunder

England and Canada both have a habit of spoiling one another's parties.

In 2012, as the nation got swept in Olympic fever and people would cheer at literally anything so long as it was decked in a Union Jack, women's football began to tap into the mainstream consciousness in the UK for the first time since the lifting of the 50-year ban on the sport.

Team GB - with a spine made up of the England team - had topped their group, beaten Brazil in front of a record crowd at Wembley and were riding on a wave of Olympic euphoria.

But just as interest began to spike, along came Canada.

A Christine Sinclair masterclass saw Canada run out 2-0 winners over the British team, knocking the hosts out at the quarter final stage. With no medal to show for their efforts and with Jessica Ennis, Andy Murray and even broadcaster Clare Balding all producing stunning performances at London 2012, the women's football team soon faded from the headlines.

Fast forward to the quarter-finals of the 2015 World Cup and it was Canada who were on home soil and England the visitors. And it was England who stole the hosts thunder in front of a partisan home crowd, running out 2-1 winners thanks to goals from Jodie Taylor and Lucy Bronze.

In the dugout for Canada on both occasions were north east natives John Herdman and assistant Bev Priestman. The latter returned to England in 2018 to join Phil Neville's coaching staff but is now in charge of Canada herself - she won Olympic gold at Tokyo 2020 in her first major tournament.

Priestman returns home to the north east of England for the inaugural Arnold Clark Cup and will see her gold medal Canada side face England on Thursday night in their opening match.

Her Canadian team won a friendly in England in the run-up to the Olympics, while Kenneth Heiner-Møller's Canada also beat the Lionesses on their own patch in the lead up to the 2019 World Cup.

"Whether I'm in Tokyo, whether I'm in Middlesbrough, I'm focussed on the task at hand," Priestman said ahead of the fixture, simultaneously becoming the first and last person to utter that sentence.

The Arnold Clark Cup is the English equivalent of the SheBelieves Cup - an invitational tournament consisting of four of the best sides in the world, dominated by host nation the USA.

England are setting their sights on replicating the USWNT's SheBelieves Cup dominance in the Arnold Clark Cup, stamping their mark on the competition and building momentum in front of a home crowd ahead of Euro 2022.

"We're going into the tournament to win it," said captain Leah Williamson. "You don't enter one not to. It's the first one so we'll see what happens but we definitely want to make it ours, for sure."

Come Thursday evening, will England spoil Priestman's north east homecoming, or will Canada steal England's Arnold Clark Cup thunder?

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