How ‘Queen of Stops’ Mary Earps went from working six jobs to pay for football boots and petrol, to finally signing with Man United… and becoming a millionaire
Mary Earps was just ten years old when she stood between two goal posts for the first time.
It wasn’t love at first sight. In fact, she became so bored watching her West Bridgford Colts teammates tussling at the other end of the pitch that she began to cartwheel around the penalty area.
Then came the moment that has defined her life since, the start of what has been a rollercoaster ride to become, not just England goalkeeper, but the world’s best female goalie with the nickname ‘Magic Mary’: she saved a penalty.
Her beloved father David, who was standing next to the goal, told Mary: ‘See if one of the other girls were in goal they wouldn’t have saved that.’
And that was that – the little girl from Nottingham’s passion for the sport had been ignited.
England goalkeeper Mary Earps leads the six nominees to become BBC Sports Personality of the Year
Earps was just ten years old when she stood between two goal posts for the first time
Earps received an honorary degree from Loughborough University earlier this month
As Mary recently recalled in a podcast with former Lioness Jill Scott: ‘I was cartwheeling around a bit bored, my dad was standing next to the goal. I remember saying to him ‘I don’t want to be here, I want to be where the ball is and it’s all the way up there’.
READ MORE: The remarkable rise of the ‘Queen of Stops’
‘He said, ‘no, it’s your turn, right in goal, it is what it is.’
‘I’m in goal, a penalty comes and I save the penalty…and that was it, that was my moment, where I felt this is where I was supposed to be, diving around in the mud helping the team.’
Despite the many accolades she has now won, tomorrow night England’s number one Mary, 30, will surely still be pinching herself as she attends the Sports Personality of the Year Award as favourite to win.
It’s a tough field. She’s up against cricketer Stuart Broad, who is currently second favourite, jockey Frankie Dettori, heptathlete Katarina Johnson-Thompson, wheelchair tennis player Alfie Hewett and golfer Rory McIlroy.
The fact she is favourite has raised many eyebrows, especially because England lost out on being crowned World Cup champions in August when they were beaten by Spain. Lioness Mary, though, emerged a hero – both on and off the pitch.
Memorably, she saved a penalty in the second half of the final, keeping England’s hopes alive and becoming a national treasure when she was caught passionately shouting ‘F*** Off!’ in reaction.
Despite England losing, the Manchester United goalie was named goalkeeper of the tournament, waltzing off with FIFA’s Golden Glove award.
But it’s her relentless campaign to get Nike to make England Women’s goalie shirts that has well and truly turned her into an A list celebrity.
Mary Earps after saving a penalty during the Women’s World Cup final in Sydney in August
Mary Earps dances on the table after England won Women’s Euro 2022 in London in July 2022
Mary Earps poses for a portrait ahead of the Fifa Football Awards in Paris on February 27
Mary Earps has become a hit on TikTok, making videos with team-mates such as Millie Bright
There was outrage when the brand launched the team kit in the summer with one glaring omission – a replica goalie shirt. Nike do produce a replica shirt for the male team’s goalkeeper.
Earps very publicly expressed her disappointment at the decision. ‘I can’t really sugar-coat this in any way, so I am not going to try. It is hugely disappointing and very hurtful,’ she told reporters at the time. The goalkeeper says she even offered to pay for production herself, but the answer was still ‘no’.
Having refused to capitulate, the company finally put them on sale last week and they sold out within minutes, proof that Brand Earps is very much a footballing phenomenon in her own right.
Part of Mary’s appeal is that she transcends the generations. The Queen of the Stops, as she is known to her fellow Lionesses, is a role model not just for young girls but also for older women who admire her no-nonsense, fun-loving attitude.
Few will forget her gatecrashing the press conference with England manager Sarina Wiegman following the Lionesses’ Euros win over Germany in 2022 at Wembley. She jumped on the table and began dancing – her joy palpable and infectious.
She said of her spontaneous boogie: ‘I was just celebrating with the girls. I honestly didn’t think about it… I wouldn’t have done it if I’d realised because those dance moves shouldn’t have been shown to millions of people!’
Given her naturally exuberant personality and campaigning credentials, not to mention her photogenic looks, it’s perhaps no surprise that she is even being schmoozed by Vogue magazine. Mary was recently named an honouree – one of only five women – at the publication’s Forces for Change gala, which celebrates those who push for a more progressive future.
For one night only, she ditched her trademark ponytail for tumbling waves, her goalie top swapped for a stunning red velvet minidress by up-and-coming designer, Jojo Vandalkidd.
Insiders at Vogue say their editorial team have ‘had their eye on’ Mary for a while and were keen for her to become part of the Conde Nast family.
Sources within the football world say Mary is now a millionaire thanks in part to her social media profile – she has 700,000 followers on Instagram and one million on TikTok. She has a lucrative deal with Nike’s rival Adidas and recently signed a contract to be a face of Superdrug.
Earps’s fans have got the moment she saved a penalty in the World Cup final tattooed on them
Fans hold signs for Mary Earps as Manchester United Women play Bristol City on November 26
Mary Earps, pictured as a child, began playing football aged eight with her brother and father
Mary Earps began playing for a local Nottingham team called West Bridgford Colts aged ten
Mary’s fans can also see her on TikTok where she is often described by her young fans as ‘boss b****’ and shares hilarious videos of her and her England teammates dancing.
But Mary’s business interests are varied. In lieu of her own footballing shirt from Nike, she started her own clothing range in time for the Women’s World Cup. Called MAE27, it includes t-shirts and hoodies, with two slogans: ‘be unapologetically yourself’ and ‘girls know the offside rule too’. However, fans have to be quick to snap them up as they sell out fast.
She also has a property portfolio.
‘I love business, I think it’s fun,’ she has said. ‘I’m not interested in living a life of luxury – just more freedom and being able to do what I want, when I want. That really motivates me.’
Off the field, relaxation is a long bath, lighting huge candles and watching Harry Potter movies and Real Housewives at her immaculate home in a smart enclave of Greater Manchester. She loves interior design and DIY.
It’s a long way from Mary’s modest middle-class upbringing. Her parents Julie and David both run their own businesses – her father has a food consultancy firm while her mum has a telesales company. Mary and her younger siblings, brother Joel, 28 and sister Annabelle, 21, grew up in a detached house in the Nottingham suburb of West Bridgford.
Even her parents found themselves as social media stars recently when they were approached by an interviewer on a train in Sydney during the World Cup. They were asked where they got the replica England goalkeeper shirts they were wearing from to which David replied: ‘Google’. The journalists slowly worked out who they were and then put the clip on TikTok.
Mary joined Leicester City’s Centre of Excellence at 14. Later, while studying for A-levels, she joined Doncaster Rovers Belles, earning £25 a game while still at school. She’s recalled how she worked six jobs to pay for boots and petrol, including shifts in a toy shop and stationery store, two coaching jobs, telesales work and in a cinema where she once had to get a colleague to finish her shift when she found out she was starting a match against Birmingham next day.
She graduated with a 2:1 in Information Management and Business Studies from Loughborough University seven years ago and signed her first professional contract at Reading in 2016 aged 23.
She then moved to Birmingham before a transfer to Germany’s Bundasliga in 2018.
Earps also receives income from a sponsorship deal with McDonald’s (file publicity picture)
Earps at the GQ Men Of The Year Awards 2023 at The Royal Opera House on November 15
Earps with teammates Jill Scott, Lauren Hemp and Ellen White at last year’s BBC Sports Personality Of The Year at Dock10 Studios in Manchester on December 21, 2022
However, her dream came true a year later when she signed for Manchester United which was closely followed by her first England call up as the squad’s third goalie for the 2019 World Cup in France.
But she was left heartbroken when England boss Phil Neville dropped her in September 2020 – leaving her to question all of her life choices. She was cooking and scrolling on her phone when she spotted that he had named a squad with four goalkeepers, not including her, for his next camp and says she fell to the floor and wept. ‘Everything that used to make sense in my life didn’t any more,’ she said.
Thankfully, she decided to carry on and, a year later, was out shopping when the new England manager, the Dutch sensation Sarina Wiegman, called to bring her back into the team.
With other keepers out injured, Mary started Wiegman’s first seven games in charge. Mary says Wiegman ‘saw something in me I didn’t see in myself. I’d lost confidence. She said, ‘I’ve been watching you – just go out there and be yourself. That’s what you’ve been selected for.’ I’ll be for ever grateful for the opportunity Sarina gave me.’
So one can only imagine Mary’s joy in February, when she walked on stage in Paris, dressed in a gold sequin dress and heels, to collect Fifa’s award for the world’s best women’s keeper.
Clutching the trophy in front of the likes of Lionel Messi, she told the crowd: ‘Sometimes success looks like this, collecting trophies; sometimes it’s just waking up and putting one foot in front of another. There’s only one of you in the world, and that’s more than good enough. Be unapologetically yourself.’
Whether she will get the opportunity to take to the stage once again to be crowned Sports Personality of the Year tomorrow is as yet unknown, but by being herself she’s already won legions of devoted fans.
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