In praise of Mary Earps

[nettie434]

Before the Women's World Cup, the England goalkeeper, Mary Earps, said that Nike refused to produce an England shirt with her name and number on because there was 'no demand' for it. This was despite the fact that sales of her club shirt were among the highest across both men and women.

Since then, everyone agrees that England might easily have been eliminated from the tournament but for Mary's outstanding performances.

I know not everyone is interested in football or sport in general but her treatment by Nike is a sign that there's still a way to go to reach equality. She's a great role model too!

It was me who shared the petition. As for the swearing, she did not swear at an individual. Footballers swear at times. Many of us do in times of stress.

The London Evening Standard summed it up quite nicely “Mary Earps’ expletive ridden reaction to her penalty save was iconic!”

As for suggesting the cross bar be lowered, surely we do not want anything to suggest the womans’ game is inferior. As another poster said, there are short male goalkeepers. In addition some races are naturally taller than others. It’s about agility rather than height. In addition there are 22 women on the same pitch with the same goals in front of them.

Nike don't like women. They sent a sports bra to Dylan Mulvaney FFS.

I'm not a massive fan of football and don't follow teams, however we watched the final and Mary was amazing.
I'd buy a shirt with her name on just to prove a point that they are bloody wanted!

I presume the shirt contact was given to Nike by the F.A.
If correct they need to take some responsibility for the lack of goalkeeper shirts. Surely they could have and should have insisted as part of the contact.
Awful PR for Nike though.

Contract even

What a pity that the only World Cup thread on the feminism board is of a negative nature. Nothing about the world class team, players and manager. Nothing about their achievements. Nothing about them raising the profile of the women’s game. Nothing about the example they set to our daughters that it’s possible to become a world class player, or that it’s a positive thing to go out and get dirty and sweaty and knackered with your friends.

Oh well. Maybe we should leave that to the boys.

ODFOD

You must be reading a different thread.

I love her. I teach primary school and we have a really strong girls football team. I would love for those girls, and indeed boys to be able to wear her shirt.

i think Earps needs to find a new way to stand for interviews & photos so that you can't see the logo. Or accidentally spill coffee on her shirt and have to wear a hoodie

You must be reading a different thread.

That's what I think too! I wanted to share my admiration for her and was delighted to find she had so many other fans too.

Nike made a poor decision (and the FA should have insisted they made shirts for all the squad, as Holshicup suggests) but Mary has made them look very silly.

She has proved herself to be great role model and won admiration from football fans and non fans, men and women.

It's always really hard to get hold of goalkeeper shirts, it's bad of course they haven't produced any of the women's but they always produce less of the men's even though for a lot of teams they sell out super fast, it's annoying (can probably tell what position ive always played). Hopefully they listen to what people are saying and do produce a replica of her kit, it'd sell in record time I'm sure with all of the attention! You can buy her Man Utd top still but £105, no thanks. They have said they'll include goalies in the future, I wouldn't buy from them either following the DM mess, maybe a new supplier is on the horizon...we can wish.

Just for completeness, Nike have now reversed their decision and will make a number of national teams' goalkeeper shirts available. From their statement:

“We recognize that during the tournament we didn’t serve those fans who wished to show their passion and support to the squad’s goalkeepers. We are committed to retailing women’s goalkeeping jerseys for major tournaments in the future.”

A good result for all those who criticised the original decision. Let's hope we see more respect to all the women and girls who play as goalkeepers at every level of football.