Rachel Brown- Finnis: volcanic
The former England goalkeeper discusses a fascinating career from being an Olympic ball girl to training on an active volcano
You were a ball girl at the 1996 Atlanta Olympics. How did that happen?
A goalkeeper coach called Mick Payne, who I’d met at a Bob Wilson camp, asked me to go to a camp he does every year in Alabama. So, at 15, I flew out there on my own to stay with a random family, while the 1996 Games were in Atlanta. One of the Olympic football matches was in Birmingham, Alabama, and the family I was living with were soccer- mad. Both their sons were ball boys and somehow I got accreditation, went down to the ball boy practices at the stadium and got roped into it. Even though I was playing for Liverpool at the time, there I was, all kitted out as a ball girl! It was a Nigeria match, and after the game I chatted to Daniel Amokachi, saying,
“I’m a big Everton fan, can I have your shirt?” even though I wasn’t! And he handed me his green shirt, which I kept hold of for ages. It was like a double XL, so wasn’t particularly endearing, but I gave it to a girl called Nikki who I played with for Everton – it stayed in good hands. She was a mad Evertonian, and pestered me about it for three or four years.
Tell us about those Bob Wilson camps...
I used to read Match magazine every week, and there were adverts in the back for those training camps. I’d never had any goalkeeper coaching until that point [ aged 12]. So I kept asking mum and dad, and they took me. We stayed in a huge private school, which looked like Hogwarts. As the parents drifted off and
just us goalkeepers were left, the lads looked around, thinking, ‘ When is she going to leave with the other parents and sisters that have dropped off their boys?’ I ended up being the only girl out of 95 boys! I had the whole wing of this ridiculous building to myself, with the other wing for the boys.
Your career started at Liverpool with a 6- 0 defeat to Arsenal – you were 15...
Kelly Smith smashed a left- foot volley from about 20 yards out – she was this wonderkid that I’d never heard of. Six weeks before, I’d played for Accrington Stanley in Division 29, or something like that, so it was just a whole other level. I was this skinny kid who could barely kick the ball out the box. The Liverpool keeper also played for England and I thought, ‘ Great, I can learn from her’, but she quit two weeks after I joined. I’d recently turned 15 and was suddenly starting.
You went to The University of Alabama on a soccer scholarship, but left because of racism – what happened?
I was living in Tuscaloosa, and it was before the internet so I had no idea what it was all about, other than having seen Forrest Gump.
Racism was so deep- rooted, I just remember it being an ‘ us and them’ mentality. When I was there, Rosa Parks having to give up her bus seat was only one generation in the past. I couldn’t believe how near the surface it was. No one really challenged it, which is what sat most uncomfortably with me – people were accepting of that sort of behaviour. I didn’t like that attitude. There were black fraternities and sororities on campus, and separate white ones too. They didn’t mix, and I couldn’t get my head around it, so I moved to Pittsburgh.
You won the FA Cup with Everton in 2010. How did it feel to lift the trophy?
I’d been there seven years at that point and gone toe- to- toe with Arsenal for the league title, so to finally get over the line and beat them with Natasha Dowie’s extra- time goal was genuine, unbridled joy. The celebrations went on for a few days, even though most of us worked alongside playing...
You pulled a few sickies then...
I think so! It’s very fuzzy. We got straight on the bus and had a few alcoholic beverages on the way back, then went straight out in Liverpool. Some of us still had our tracksuits on and hadn’t even showered! We probably didn’t look our best, but we certainly enjoyed ourselves. It was probably that kind of team spirit which got us the victory.
How was being part of Team GB in 2012?
I remember the men’s and women’s teams being jammed inside a classroom and Kelly Holmes said, “Whether you win a medal or not, you are and always will be an Olympian.” That meant so much – having idolised these people, now I was one of that elite club. My first football match as a fan was at Wembley, seeing Burnley vs Wolves in the Sherpa Vans Trophy final, aged eight. I went down on the train with my mum and dad, my little brother and the whole town of Burnley. That was in 1988, then 24 years on I was part of Team GB at the Olympics, walking out at Wembley! I still get a lump in my throat thinking about everything I’d gone through to get there. It was quite a journey. The Olympic village was unreal – 5,000 people eating dinner together, wandering around, and guys like Usain Bolt and Mo Farah just there, getting some lunch.
You once played for a side in Iceland – what was it like being based there?
My former Liverpool team- mate Karen Burke said her team IBV needed a goalie. It wasn’t even mainland Iceland – it was the Westman Islands, which is where [ former Portsmouth defender] Hermann Hreidarsson is from. For the first training session, we literally ran up a grassy volcano. At the top they said, “You can’t spend very long here because it’s really hot under your feet.” They put slalom poles down the mountain, then the defenders had to slide tackle around the poles, and keepers had to dive down the volcano around them. It was the best training session. When could you ever get to do this in Liverpool?!
We heard you lost some teeth…
Yeah, my two front teeth are – courtesy of the FA – both implants. Ironically, it was my best friend Jodie Handley that knocked them out during an England training camp. It was a wet day – I went sliding down at her feet to get a through- ball and she came hurtling in with her studs up, wiping out my two front teeth. Conveniently enough, my local dentist was just up the road. So I trudged up in my England gear, all wet and muddy, knocked on the door and said, “Hi, can you sort out my front teeth please?”
You suffered a few bad injuries, including tearing an anterior cruciate ligament. How tough was that?
Before the 2007 World Cup, my surgeon told me, “If you were a male England goalkeeper you’d have earned millions and I’d encourage you to retire, but I know you won’t. So you’ll have to play through the pain for the next six months.” I had some bone growing on the underside of my kneecap, so it scraped with every movement, even just walking upstairs. The pain was unreal. It put me in good stead for dealing with childbirth – it was a breeze!