Manchester United goalkeeper Mary Earps, affectionately known as “Mearps”, may now be firmly ensconced as England’s number one after her heroic displays at the Euros – and impassioned leadership of the table-dancing celebrations that followed – but her chances of even being part of the squad once looked remote.
Prior to the arrival of Sarina Wiegman as England manager in September 2021, Earps believed her form was so poor she might never return to the national team, having made her debut against Switzerland in 2017 but received only a handful of caps thereafter before falling out of favour.
Earps went on to win the Fifa ‘Best’ award following the Euros, it was not long after she had considered quitting the game altogether.
“I can vividly remember the days of feeling really down and I’d sort of reached my limits and given it a good go but I just wasn’t quite good enough. I had responsibilities, I had a mortgage and it wasn’t adding up,” she told the BBC earlier this year.
Man U could only give her a salary that was beneath what she could afford to live on, and she soon also found herself dropped from the national side.
“There was no way my career was going to be resurrected. It was dead and gone. Run over 3,000 times and trampled by a million elephants.”
The Nottingham native credits her family’s support in helping her pick herself up and turn around her form.
Earps was born on 7 March, 1993, making her 30 years old.
She won the award for Best Women’s Goalkeeper at FIFA’s The Best ceremony in Paris in 2023, dedicating the award to “anyone who has ever been in a dark place” and encouraging her fans going through something similar that “there’s light at the end of the tunnel.”
Later, she remembered how she narrowly failed to save Brazil’s first penalty in April’s Finalissima shootout. Once again Sarina Weigman encouraged her and she told herself that she was close, but not close enough. Mary worked on her weaknesses, underwent hard training and a time came when she proved her detractors and critics wrong and proved what she was. She got the FIFA best goalkeeper award. And now she is rocking. Read more
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