Ellie Roebuck: ‘I should have lost my vision after stroke’

England goalkeeper Ellie Roebuck says she almost lost her eyesight after having a stroke at the age of 24.

Roebuck, now 25, felt something was “not right” towards the end of 2023 but it was first put down to concussion after she was hit in the head by a ball during a match for Manchester City.

She had a scan and the club doctor told her to come in, telling her she had a stroke.

Ellie Roebuck: “I probably should have been blind”

Ellie Roebuck is fighting to get back into the England squad (Image credit: Getty Images)Roebuck told the BBC: “I’m lucky because I should have lost my vision. I should have lost my peripheral vision for sure.

“The majority of people that suffer a stroke [like mine] do that. So, I probably should have been blind, which is quite a miracle that that didn’t happen.”

Ellie Roebuck signed for Barcelona in 2024 (Image credit: Florencia Tan Jun – UEFA/UEFA via Getty Images)After investigations she found out it was caused by a tiny hole in her heart.

She added: “”[It] sounds crazy, but I was grateful that I had a hole in my heart because I’d found my reason and I knew that it could be closed and I could move on. I was almost excited that I was going in for heart surgery.”

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Roebuck didn’t play for City again after her stroke and moved to Barcelona in the 2024/25 summer transfer window.

The goalkeeper added her final season with City was “badly managed”.

“I just felt like maybe my relationship with the manager [Gareth Taylor] got fractured,” Roebuck said.

“I don’t know whether that was me, maybe not hearing the clear communication or the fact that there just wasn’t clear communication.

“I got my head down and I just tried to work every day, but I think it was a badly managed situation. I’ve always been professional. I just felt like the respect wasn’t reciprocated in that same sense.”