‘Now is the time to give back to all the people who have supported me’
Karen Carney will hang up her boots after today’s game, writes Katie Whyatt in Nice
Karen Carney’s eyes glistened and her voice cracked but she did not cry. England’s second-most capped female player of all time yesterday announced her retirement. She will make her 144th and final appearance for her country at some point against Sweden in the third-place play-off in Nice today and call time, too, on a playing career that has encompassed spells at Arsenal, current club Chelsea and her hometown Birmingham City. Once or twice while addressing the media, the 31-year-old had to fan her face and take deep breaths as her voice gave a telltale wobble.
As a child, Carney never imagined she could be a professional footballer – her first job was on the checkout in the Sainsbury’s where her mother worked, and without football she “probably would have worked my way up the ladder there because I wasn’t very good at school”.
But, aged 11, she told her parents, for reasons she has never pinpointed, that she would one day play for England. She did so at 17, scoring on her debut against Italy in 2005, and going on to make three European Championship and four World Cup squads. Her contribution will be honoured, the Football Association says, at a forthcoming international.
She has featured three times from the bench in this World Cup, but her dedication has remained total. “We have the option of some players going to training early to practise: we call it individual development plans,” coach Phil
England international Toni Duggan is searching for a new club after Barcelona following two successful seasons with the Spanish club.
Duggan, who has had a disappointing World Cup after picking up a thigh injury in the pretournament training camp, left Manchester City in 2017 and could well return to England although only a handful of clubs could match her wage demands.
Other options would be a move to the United States where the domestic league has been boosted by a new television partnership with ESPN. Neville said. “There was only one player that went in early yesterday, and that was Karen Carney. A player that was two days away from kicking her last ball still went down to the pitch early to practise before everyone else got there. That’s not something you can teach. That is something that you’re born with and that’s within you.”
Carney estimated she had toyed with the decision to retire for “about two years, but then there was always moments where [I thought], keep going – that [it] was just adversity telling me to stop”.
Neville had discussed Carney’s retirement with her “privately for the last six months – but you can’t just get to the end of the season and think, that’s it. It takes careful planning and you’ve got to sort your thought processes out”.
She returned from the Shebelieves Cup in March and “I went, ‘No, I’m done,’” she said. “Walked in and told [Chelsea manager] Emma Hayes. I think she thought I just meant internationally, but I was like, ‘No, no – I can’t give any more. I’ve maxed out in every area. I’ve gone for every percentage gain to be the best that I can be. It’s just time’. My mind still wants to do everything but I don’t think my body can any more. My mind would want to continue until I was 100, but at some point, your body tells you enough is enough.
“You keep going until you’ve got nothing else in the tank, and I don’t think I have any more. That’s why I’m confident and I know it’s the right decision for me. I’ve given my heart and soul to my clubs that I’ve played for and especially my country.”
Still unsure, in March, whether she would make the World Cup she had aspirations of winning, Carney, Hayes and Neville kept her decision a secret. “I didn’t feel announcing something was the right thing to do, because you don’t concentrate on what you’re here to do,” she said. Instead, she told her team-mates an hour before the news was made public. “I feel bad. I didn’t even tell some of my family. My sister didn’t even know until she read it. I just wanted to keep it to myself and just focus on the job at hand.
“I don’t really know what I want to do. There isn’t an opportunity in the media for me. I’d like to give back to football in some capacity. I think I’d feel quite empty if I wasn’t able to help. All I do know is I’m going to spend time with my family because it feels for a long time I haven’t been able to.
“I think, as a footballer, you’re so selfish and so driven to get to places, sometimes you forget the most important people. Now I have to give back to the people that have supported me. I’m nothing without my family. I’m going to be there for their moments as well.”