Mary Earps: five English clubs before Wolfsburg, then a World Cup Golden Glove and BBC's top prize

Mary Earps had already played for five different English clubs by the time most goalkeepers are settling into a first-choice shirt. Nottingham Forest, Bristol City, Birmingham City, Doncaster Rovers Belles, Reading: none of them made her a household name. A move to Germany, to Wolfsburg in the Bundesliga, did more to establish her as a serious professional than anything in England had managed.

Manchester United, then a trophy

Earps spent five years at Manchester United, becoming the club’s first-choice goalkeeper and eventually helping them win their first ever Women’s FA Cup, in 2024. It was the platform from which the rest of her career took off.

A tournament that changed everything

Earps started every minute of England’s Euro 2022 campaign as the Lionesses won the tournament for the first time. A year later, at the 2023 World Cup in Australia and New Zealand, she went further still: Golden Glove winner as the tournament’s best goalkeeper, vice-captain of the squad, and the player who saved Jennifer Hermoso’s penalty for Spain in the final. England lost that match, but Earps left it as one of the individual stories of the tournament.

That December, she won BBC Sports Personality of the Year, and the following January she was appointed MBE for services to Association Football.

A European career, then a return

After Manchester United, Earps moved to Paris Saint-Germain, spending two seasons in France’s Première Ligue and recording 12 clean sheets in 22 appearances. In the summer of 2026 she came back to England, signing a two-year contract with London City Lionesses, a club with growing WSL ambitions, and re-establishing herself in the league where her career in England began.

Retirement from England, not from football

In May 2025, Earps announced her retirement from international football after 53 caps and 26 clean sheets for England. It closed the international chapter of a career that had, by then, already taken her through five English clubs, a spell in Germany, a World Cup final, and one of English sport’s biggest individual honours.