Inspirational Cumings won’t mind wait for cap after miracle recovery
EARTHA CUMINGS, who will have to wait a bit longer for her first Scotland cap, is clearly an exceptionally resolute young woman. How else to describe a footballer who came through an extraordinary teenage trauma and is now on the brink of representing her country?
The Charlton Athletic goalkeeper – her side are third in the FA Women’s Championship – had to sign a form giving permission for her legs to be amputated, if necessary, when she was 17. We often talk blithely about having a nightmare, but for somebody who started her footballing journey at a very early age, this was just about as dark as it could get.
And yet, that is not how Cumings describes it. We met on Tuesday at the La Finca golf resort in Murcia where Scotland are based for the Pinatar Cup. In these opulent surroundings, the 22-year-old related her back story.
“I was at Spartans from the age of five,” she said. “I started in the boys side and then joined the girls when
I was about 10. I made my competitive first team debut when I was 15.”
Caps at Scotland Under-16, 17 and 19 levels quickly followed. But just when her footballing prospects couldn’t look any rosier, the unimaginable happened.
“It was nearly bang on five years ago, and basically I was having an operation for a pre-existing health condition,” Cumings recounted. “Something went a bit wrong and the blood flowed to my legs.
“I woke up from that surgery in a lot of pain. They did some checks and confirmed I had something called compartment syndrome.
“I was taken back into surgery that night, just a couple of hours after I came round, for emergency treatment. Before it
I had to sign a form giving them permission to amputate both my legs if necessary.” Mercifully that was not the outcome, but the ordeal was far from over.
“I was in intensive care for about eight days, in a lot of pain getting lots of operations – 10 in total,” Cumings continued. “I had skin grafts put in. There were three operations on the first day within 16 hours, then work done on the scars.
“I wasn’t able to walk for a long time. I was in a wheelchair and then a Zimmer frame, then crutches, then walking. It was quite difficult, because each time I came back to training with Spartans I had to have another operation to take the skin grafts out. “This lasted backwards and forwards for the best part of a year.” They obviously mould them tough in the Cumings family – her two older sisters also played for Spartans – but, even so, what was going through her head when, in severe pain, she signed the form that could have had irreversible consequences?
“It came out at me sideways, so the idea that it was going to affect the rest of my life never really crossed my mind,” she responded. “I just kind of assumed it was all going to be fine. That’s the best way I was able to cope with it. Even when they were saying they didn’t know if I could ever play football again I said ‘I’m going to play’. But, yes, waking up from that operation and realising I still had my feet was nice!”
Cumings played a few more games for Spartans before moving to Bristol City under the guidance of Willie Kirk and Chris Roberts. She joined Charlton in 2020 and last summer, two months after being called into the senior Scotland squad for the first time by interim head coach Stuart McLaren, became the club’s first professional player.
Yesterday’s game against Slovakia, the lowest-ranked nation in the Pinatar
Cup, might have been an opportunity to introduce her at senior level, but Lee Alexander returned to the side in place of Jenna Fife, who was between the posts against Wales.
AND FINALLY
THE sense of growing disquiet among those who follow Scotland’s fortunes closely continued on Wednesday at the Pinatar Arena. The 3-1 defeat to Wales followed November’s 8-0 dismantling by Spain, and was the first time since 1996 that the Welsh had won.
A run of four games without a win, including three defeats, ended with the 2-0 victory against Slovakia. Next up on Tuesday are Hungary, who Scotland beat home and away in World Cup qualifying.