Mary Earps speaks on England goalkeeping and the next generation

Mary Earps has spoken about the state of England goalkeeping and the need to make specialist coaching available far earlier for girls, arguing that the pathway is still harder than it should be.

The former Lionesses No.1, now with PSG and preparing for an emotional Wembley tribute, framed it as part of a wider mission to leave the game better than she found it.

It is a timely intervention. England have moved into a new phase with Hannah Hampton in possession of the shirt, while the wider conversation about pathways, from academies to the pyramid, keeps resurfacing in pieces like Ellie Roebuck’s recent Lionesses story and the ongoing debate around structural changes lower down the women’s game .

Speaking in an interview published by The Athletic , Earps tied her own career story to a broader concern about access to proper goalkeeper development for girls.

“There’s a stat that 80 per cent of girls in England still don’t get access to specialised goalkeeping training until late in their careers. It’s not that I’m forcing goalkeeping on everyone, but that’s insane. It makes becoming a goalkeeper even harder.”

That is the key line here. Earps is not talking in abstractions about inspiration or visibility alone; she is talking about coaching hours, technical work and whether young players are given a real chance to learn the position properly.

She also made clear that this sits at the centre of how she now sees her role in the sport. “I want to leave the game in a better place than where I found it.”

That tells us plenty about where her focus has moved, especially after retirement from international football and the noise that followed. The playing career matters. So does the footprint left behind.

England’s senior picture has changed quickly. Hampton is now the established starter, while Khiara Keating remains one of the younger names often discussed as part of the next wave, and Roebuck’s return to the conversation has added another layer to the competition.

But Earps’s point is really about what sits beneath that top level. If girls are still arriving in their mid-teens without specialist goalkeeper coaching, England will continue relying on exceptional individuals finding their own way through rather than a system consistently producing them.

That is not a new issue to anyone who has followed the women’s game for years. The sport has grown fast, but provision has not always grown evenly, particularly outside the biggest academy environments. Earps’s own KeepHers programme in Manchester, run with Foundation 92, is aimed squarely at that gap by offering free sessions for girls aged six to 18.

There is also a culture shift here. Goalkeeping in the women’s game is no longer the position nobody wanted. Earps has helped change that, on the pitch and off it, whether through shirt campaigns, clinics or simply making the role visible in the first place. That matters as much as any one cap tally.

Earps is a particularly useful witness because she has seen the game before the boom and after it. She did not receive technical goalkeeping coaching until she was 14, then went on to become England’s Euro 2022 winner, World Cup Golden Glove recipient and one of the most recognisable figures in the sport.

That profile has brought scrutiny as well as status. Her retirement 36 days before Euro 2024, her candid autobiography and her mixed reception on a return to Manchester with PSG all underline that she is no longer speaking from a quiet corner of the game.

She is speaking from right in the middle of it. That gives weight to her view, just as her broader recognition in the game has done, including the sort of visibility reflected in women’s football awards coverage where her standing has long been obvious.

It also helps that she is still playing, even in a difficult PSG season. Earps is not offering this as a retired pundit looking back from distance; she is balancing elite football with the question of what comes next for those behind her.

The immediate England question is straightforward enough: Hampton has the gloves, competition remains healthy, and Sarina Wiegman has options. The harder question is whether the pathway feeding that senior picture is deep enough, broad enough and affordable enough across the country.

That is where Earps’s intervention lands. WSL academies and professional club environments are better resourced than they were, but the national pathway still depends heavily on what players can access before they ever reach an elite setup. Goalkeepers need repetition, specialist coaching and patience. They do not develop by accident.

So this is bigger than one famous name talking about legacy. It is a reminder that England producing top-level goalkeepers cannot just be about who emerges despite the system. At some point, it has to be about a system that makes emergence more likely.

Visibility changed the position. Access has to change it again.