Women’s Pyramid: Manchester United star Ella Toone joins Chorley in surprising new role
Manchester United and England star Ella Toone has joined Chorley in a special advisory role.
The most sensational signing of the close season might not be a player transfer.
It could well be the appointment of Chorley Women’s creative and strategic advisor, Manchester United and England superstar Ella Toone.
The FA Women’s National League Division One North side made the surprise announcement this week with the release of a video created by Toone’s own agency, Amicizia.
And Toone followed it up with a post on social media that revealed: “I’ll be working with the club’s leadership team to shape the creative direction, strengthen the identity, and support growth on and off the pitch. That includes brand development, community engagement, content, and creating more visibility and opportunities for the women’s game at Chorley.”
She will be advising the club on its future direction, operationally, creatively, and on the pitch as they seek to make the step up from Tier 4.
Chorley is already a special club. An independent side, not attached to a men’s club, they have a long history stemming back to 1983.
In a world where every team is battling for each piece of funding or sponsorship, Chorley have been looking for ways to make their commercial offer even more interesting to business partners.
Toone’s involvement ends any concerns there might have been over Chorley’s future. Last season’s committee were looking to move on, and new ideas and input were needed to take the club forward.
Enter Kevin Spencer, the new chair. Father of Burnley goalkeeper Eva, his interest in women’s football began when he was seeking a team for his daughter, and gradually he got drawn more and more into volunteering behind the scenes.
Now a qualified coach, he heads up the girls’ under-14 and under-16 programmes for Greater Manchester County, and says he takes immense pride in that project as a Mancunian.
“I lived in Chorley for about ten years, so I’d always had a bit of an affinity with the town,” he tells DragonFootball. “I played rugby at Chorley for a number of years and have friends there, and having been involved in women’s football for a while, I knew of Chorley.
“Within the game, the club is very well respected. It’s independent. It has no ties to a men’s team or anybody else now. They’ve operated in Tier 4 for a number of years on a very small budget with a bit of an underdog story behind it.”
‘People care about this football club’
Spencer was approached to take over as chair by the previous incumbent, Jonny Slater, who served for two seasons from 2024.
“I inherited effectively an unstructured amateur sports club where there was literally no legal structuring in place, and we started a ball rolling on incorporation,” Slater says of that first season, which he describes as “hell for leather”.
He laid the foundations of sound governance infrastructure, with financial forecasts and meeting agendas and minutes all set up, and adds that he expects that the club were one of the best-run sides in the National League at the time. That was reflected in their on-pitch performances, finishing in their highest-ever league spot of third, just behind Middlesbrough and Cheadle Town Stingers.
He also looked at some of the club’s public-facing activity, most notably its branding. Taking into account the proud four-decade history, a sub-committee created a new digital identity and guidelines, complete with fresh crest.
It was a sizeable collection of achievements. By the middle of the 2025-26 season, however, Slater and the other committee members were looking to step down and hand the club over to a new group. He admits now that it was a possibility that the club would not continue.
“Fortunately, when push comes to shove, people do care about the football club,” he says, “and I think all the off-pitch work and the history and the position the club was in, such a good foundation, allowed the Toone party to come in, take over, and they’ve got a really nice project on their hands now.”
‘She’s exactly what Chorley needed’
Spencer was the one who brokered the agreement, after Slater had asked him to consider stepping in as chair.
“I went away for a few weeks and had some mad, crazy thoughts and different ideas: could we structure something that could work for the benefit of all? That’s where this idea came from.
“I didn’t know Ella at that time. Obviously, I knew who she is. She lives 15 minutes down the road from me, and, quite frankly, she’s the biggest name in women’s football in the north-west of England, possibly one of the biggest names in the country. I’ve always admired her and the way she goes about her business and her football. She’s done an awful lot in [her] 26 years.
“But I knew her agents, I knew the people around her, so I had a meeting with them. I then went to an event Ella was at and met with her and spoke to her about my idea, and it escalated from there. I felt before those meetings that what Ella was doing and what she had would fit perfectly with Chorley and she was exactly what Chorley needed.”
One of Toone’s projects includes her ET7 Academy, aimed at girls aged from eight to 19. Spencer hopes that this will offer some synergy, allowing young players the chance to progress into a women’s team competing at a high level.
“[Toone is] very passionate about giving young players opportunities to play senior football,” he says. “We feel this is a bit of an issue in England especially, where young players, 16, 17, 18, are not playing enough senior minutes in comparison to perhaps other countries…so Ella’s very driven on that.”
‘Putting Chorley on the map’
As new head coach Alex Brito Nogueira puts together a squad ready for the new era, Slater will be cheering from the sidelines, delighted to have left the club in these fresh hands.
“For WSL to see one of their players, taking on a bit of responsibility and helping lower down in the pyramid, I think that’s exciting,” he says. “It’s a really good signal.”
Naturally, Toone’s name has already brought in plenty of interest from external organisations wanting to partner with the club and their Lioness.
But Chorley will remain rooted in their community, as they have done for the last 40 years.
“We want young girls in Chorley to see what this is,” says Spencer. “We want families to come and enjoy Sunday afternoons at the club. We want food outlets, we want music, we want fanfare, we want drums, we want it to be a great place to come along and have some fun, a real focal point for the town, to get more eyeballs on Chorley as a town and also as the club itself, and Ella’s position within the football community will help that.”
He adds: “This is a really nice group of people with all the right intentions. This isn’t about making money. This is about having some fun, and it’s about creating something really special that puts the club, the players, the town, on the football map.”