One hundred and forty four England caps. Arsenal quadruple winner. FA Cup winner with her childhood club Birmingham City.
Pundit for Sky Sports, ITV, TNT and CBS Sports. Chair of the Future of Women’s Football Review for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport. Strictly Come Dancing winner.
Karen Carney has turned her hand to many things during her career. Despite challenges along the way, success has been a consistent theme.
As is her love of football, which emanated from her childhood in the Hall Green area of Birmingham, which also once housed such luminaries as Tony Hancock, Formula One commentator Murray Walker, former F1 world champion Nigel Mansell and Lord Of The Rings author JRR Tolkien.
“I just played football with the lads in the playground and fell in love with it, it escalated from there.
“I was playing as much as I could and my dad took me along to a local scheme – I think it would be called a Wildcats scheme now – and he told them I was good and should join a team.
"They gave me a list of teams and Birmingham City were on it; that’s my team so that was the only place I wanted to go. I joined them as an 11-year old and never looked back.”
Carney’s career really took off when, as a 17-year-old, she was called into Hope Powell’s England squad for Euro 2005, which was hosted on home soil. She scored a stoppage time winner against Finland in front of just under 30,000 at the City of Manchester Stadium, a game that was broadcast live on the BBC.
“It put me on the map. I was 17 and doing my A-Levels,” she remembers. “That was a challenge in itself. I never thought I would be at the tournament because I was so young. But I got the opportunity and grabbed it with both hands.
"In the opening game I got the winner, on TV in front of a few million people as well as around 30,000 watching in the stadium. That was the catalyst for my career.”
"I just played football with the lads in the playground and fell in love with it; it escalated from there."
At that point, Arsenal had something close to a monopoly on the best talents from across the UK. Sure enough, she joined the Gunners from her childhood club Birmingham City in 2006.
“Vic Akers spoke to me and my family. I have to credit Birmingham; they were supportive because they could see the opportunity was there to join the best team in England and a team that was trying to be the best in Europe. The season I joined we won five trophies – we won everything in my first season, even the Community Shield.”
Carney joined a squad featuring legends such as Faye White, Jayne Ludlow, Emma Byrne, Rachel Yankey, Kelly Smith and Ciara Grant, led by legendary coach Vic Akers.
“Culturally, Arsenal taught me so much about representing the badge,” Karen reflects. “I knew that from Birmingham but they were my team, so it was understanding that in a different environment and Vic drilled that into us.
“Arsenal was where I played my best football and my most successful period. It also really helped my England career because so many of the Arsenal players played for England. Alex Scott was behind me at right back for club and country so we had that strong connection.
"Rachel Yankey and Kelly Smith were in both teams and I understood them in the attacking third – it all went together well. I learned so much from an unbelievable culture and the great players I got to play with.”
But Carney was also part of a younger core with players like Alex Scott, Lianne Sanderson and Anita Asante. Carney says the quadruple winning squad of 2006/07 was a perfect blend in terms of age and experience.
“Winning teams have a diversity to them. We all brought something very different but we all conformed – nothing was more important than the badge.
“Vic was big on that culture, knowing what that jersey means. We had a mix of senior players and young players from all over the UK; we had those big leaders like Julie Fleeting, Jayne Ludlow, Emma Byrne, Ciara Grant – so many top players from across the Home Nations – and we all brought something different. We all fought for each other.”
She says that diversity of profile was also present in the dugout with a burgeoning Emma Hayes part of Arsenal’s coaching set-up at the time. “Vic was quite old school but Emma Hayes was assistant manager and she brought in a bit more of a new-school approach.
"It was a great mix and brought a freshness to the team. We were all so different but we all put Arsenal first.”
As part of winning that unprecedented quadruple in 2006/07, Arsenal overcame Swedish powerhouse Umea over two legs in the UEFA Cup final (now recognised as the Champions League). While the Gunners were underdogs against Umea’s fully professional band of Galacticas, Carney says they were deserved winners.
“It was two-legged and they couldn’t break us down over two games so we were the rightful winners. Keeping a clean sheet against Umea at that time was huge. We had the best from the Home Nations but they had the best from around the world.
"We had to fight and show our values; Vic taught us those values of digging deep and I think that’s why we won.
“We were talented and talent got us to a certain point, but hard work and teamwork got us the results. It wasn’t lucky that we kept two clean sheets – there is a reason it happened. We were hard to beat and we stuck together.
"Alex Scott steps us and gives us the bit of magic in the first leg to win it. Anyone from any position in that team was capable of that.”
"We had to fight and show our values; Vic taught us those values of digging deep and I think that's why we won."
Carney left the club in 2009 for a new challenge at Chicago Red Stars in the US, where Gunners coach Emma Hayes had recently taken up a position as head coach. Karen, nicknamed “The Wizard’ during her playing days due to her close control, said the opportunity was too big to pass up.
“I had finished university and I had won everything at Arsenal. The game still wasn’t fully professional in England so that was the next step for me.
“I was 21 and I think anyone would understand why you’d take that decision. It was familiar for me because I linked up with Emma. I loved my time at Arsenal, but it was a dream to be a pro footballer and that just wasn’t available in England at that time. It was too difficult to turn down and I think everyone understood.”
Karen came back to play for Birmingham City between 2011 and 2015, winning the FA Cup in 2012 and reaching the Champions League semi-finals in 2014.
She linked up with Hayes again at Chelsea from 2016 until her retirement in 2019, winning another FA Cup. Carney’s England career was similarly rewarding, blazing the trail for the current squad’s path to back-to-back Euros.
“I look back at my international career with pride. I won 144 caps and won a silver and bronze medal, played at four Euros and four World Cups,” she says.
Carney was part of the England squad that won bronze at the 2015 World Cup and she was in the Team GB squad at the 2012 Olympics. “Of course, I would have loved a gold medal. But you want to leave the jersey in a better place.
“If we helped to put it in a better place for success down the line, that is success in itself. We always tried to drive standards and leave it in a better place and I am so proud to see the Lionesses win back-to-back Euros and sit back and look at what an amazing achievement that is.”
The 2019 World Cup was another “boom’ moment for women’s football in England, leading to a big uptick in attendances at domestic and international games. Carney retired before that tournament but still sees growing the game as part of her media role.
“I don’t look on with envy or bitterness. I had an amazing career and I am proud of it, and I’m fully signed up to keep on helping the game to develop and grow. As a female athlete I think that desire comes quite naturally. You want to keep driving standards and attendances and I think there’s more to come.”
She quickly became a consistent presence on BT Sports (now TNT), ITV for England’s Lionesses coverage and Sky Sports’ WSL coverage. Carney’s media career started to take off before her retirement from playing.
“The reason I went into media was to make me a better footballer, to understand tactics more. My studies were in psychology, I was in team talks a lot as a player, which helped my tactical understanding. Then more opportunities came in and I just got hold of it and enjoyed it.”
While Carney remains a consistent presence on our screens, she has also dipped her toe in governance issues. Her standing in the game saw her given the opportunity to chair Future of Women’s Football Review for the Department for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport.
"DCMS called me and asked if I wanted to lead it. I would talk in the media a lot about how much the game means to me and how much I think about it so it was a natural step forward when that opportunity came. It was a great learning curve for me.
"I was very passionate about it but there was pressure too. My name was against this as a potential blueprint for not just women’s football but women’s sports."
“I knew I had to get it right because I knew the obstacles I faced as a young girl. I didn’t want the next little girl to face the same ones.
"There were ten things in the report that are quite strategic about what we felt the game needed in that moment and they were all accepted. We’re slowly ticking them off and we are in a strong position for the game to keep going forward.”
Carney’s name and face are well known in football given her playing and media careers, as well as her work on the DCMS review. Late last year, she “crossed over’ into household fame by participating in – and winning – the 2025 series of BBC’s primetime show Strictly Come Dancing. Karen says her background in football only had a tangential impact on her success in the show.
“I don’t think my football background helped that much. Maybe the mindset a little bit, but I didn’t realise that until about week six and onwards. I don’t think it helped with the actual dancing or even the fitness – I’ve been retired six years after all!
“The mindset of being in a team and respecting everybody’s jobs, respecting each other, comes from football culture. The principle of, ‘you’re only as good as your next game’ is the same as ‘you’re only as good as your next dance,’ and the more you train the more you improve.
“But I also didn’t just want to be an athlete. I wanted to work hard but to enjoy it too and try to grow in confidence, and I think that’s what I did.”
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