Mary Earps: Queen of Stops first arrived on iPlayer at the end of May. Even then, it was unfortunate timing, appearing just three days after the goalkeeper’s shock announcement that she would be retiring from international football with immediate effect. It comes to terrestrial television a month later, and does feel like a documentary made for an England Euros campaign with Earps in the squad. Nevertheless, it channels her ambition, drive and amazing achievements into a pleasant hour that should spark memories, or premonitions, of the tensions to come over the next few weeks.
Sportspeople are not always the most absorbing of subjects. To me, this seems a fair exchange, in the great cosmic talent pool: you can either be superhumanly athletic, or you can be charismatic. To be both is borderline greedy. This balancing act does mean that great documentaries about sporting stars are few and far between.
Earps has always been a bit different. When she won the BBC’s Sports Personality of the Year award in 2023, the personality part shone as much as the sport. With England, she had won the Euros in 2022, and got to a World Cup final just a year later, taking small consolation from walking away with the Golden Glove if not the ultimate prize. She had also fought for an England women’s goalkeeper’s replica shirt to go on sale, after realising there was no plan to release one. Here, it sounds as if she spoke out, despite knowing it could be a risky move.
This documentary hones in on the two history-making tournaments, but it does have time to whiz through what got her there in the first place. She reminisces about playing against Hucknall Town for West Bridgford Colts as a youngster and how saving a penalty became her lightbulb moment. (It’s another side of Hucknall, which is having a big 2025 on TV, as the setting for the outstanding drama What It Feels Like For a Girl.) She bounced around various clubs from 2011 until she signed for Manchester United in 2019. This serves as a solid overview of women’s football over the past two decades. Like many women, she wasn’t sure that football could be a sustainable career, and she describes having to “gamble” on whether it was worth taking that chance on herself.
It’s safe to say that her career gamble paid off. Earps comes across as a considered decision-maker, even when taking on Nike over the replica shirt. She describes her personal low, of finally getting her chance to start for England under Phil Neville, only to receive “brutal feedback” following a loss to Germany. She was not called up again, and remembers it being a “very lonely” time. Loneliness is a theme. From her current training ground at Paris Saint-Germain, she talks about how the keeper’s lot can be a solitary one. They train separately, are analysed separately; other goalkeepers, as she has recently learned, are competition.
In fact, by 2021, Earps had, notoriously, almost given up on international football. It took a new England manager, Sarina Wiegman, to spot her talent and put her trust in her for the now infamous Euros of 2022. It is strange to look back and think that it was ever a risk, but Earps says she thinks people questioned both her experience and Wiegman’s decision-making. We all know how she responded to the pressure, though there are some nice anecdotes here, such as a revelation about what the England captain, Leah Williamson, shouted in her ear after they beat Spain in the quarter finals.
During the World Cup, Earps’ parents briefly went viral when they were interviewed by a reporter who had no idea who they were and wanted to know how they got their hands on a goalkeeper’s shirt. Sadly, they don’t reference that lovely moment here, but her mother and her brother pop over to Paris to see her, and, in the case of her brother, to tease her, in a way that only siblings can.
Elsewhere, there are the standard supportive tales from her teammates. The eternally good value Ella Toone turns up and jokes that she’s “talking about Mazza again”, before discussing their sisterly relationship. Alessia Russo talks about Earp’s “tunnel vision” on game day. Lucy Bronze and Jill Scott recall Earps’ early days in the squad, and Wiegman talks about the potential she saw in her.
Watching replays of those thrilling moments from 2022, and from the 2023 World Cup – the goals scored, but of course, the crucial saves, too – should be more than enough to rev England fans up for the start of another Euros campaign, though this documentary is also bittersweet, given that Earps won’t be there to play her part in it.
• Mary Queen of Stops aired on BBC One and is on iPlayer now.
