Mary Earps is ‘very happy to be home’ after returning to the Women’s Super League, following two seasons with Paris Saint-Germain.
The opening fixture of the Women’s Super League season sees Earps and London City face Manchester United, the club with which she spent five years before moving to France.
Earps missed her home comforts in her two years away, especially Percy Pigs, so is excited to be back in the WSL and especially excited to face her former side on the opening match.
‘Distance makes the heart grow fonder’
Earps spent two years at PSG after leaving Manchester United, with the move giving her the opportunity to experience life away from the spotlight that had followed her in England.
While she admits it was “nice to be away” and experience “the Parisian way of life,” her conversations with London City helped her decide it was time to return to England.
“I’m very, very happy to be home,” Earps said. “I missed the English comforts, my friends and family and a Percy Pig or two!
“From a football point of view, I missed the English football culture - the way you feel when you walk into a stadium, the electricity of the crowd, the feeling around women's football in this country.
"I knew I was probably going to miss that going away, but that's why I'm so excited to be back. Distance makes the heart grow fonder.
“I went away to push myself out of my comfort zone and get a different football and life experience. I'll carry that with me forever.”
Earps ‘like a moth to a flame’ with Manchester United
Earps’ reunion with United on the opening day of the season marks another exciting encounter with her former side.
Just last season, PSG were drawn against Manchester United in the Champions League, with Earps receiving a warm reception on her return to Old Trafford, something she said meant a “great deal” to her in that moment - it had been a turbulent time following the release of her autobiography detailing why she retired from international football.
With her first competitive appearance for London City potentially coming against United, Earps joked that the fixture felt almost inevitable: “Yeah, like a moth to a flame.”
"The club has changed a lot since I left but although some people have moved on as football and life does, there will still be a few friendly faces that I know and the fans don't change - they're still hardcore as ever.”
‘London City will go on to do great things for a long time’
While Earps says she doesn’t yet know whether she will be the starting goalkeeper for London City, she says the competition for her place is something that excites her.
“I want to continue to play at the highest level, to win at the highest level for as long as possible and to be a part of something special,” Earps added. “I really do believe that London City will go on to do great things for a long time.
“The way Michele [Kang] wants to do things, they want to be the best in class and world leading. So for me, it's a great place to be, for me to max out on whatever potential I have left and hopefully there's some fantastic days around the corner.
“London City being owned by a woman, being an independent football club, being able to go about their business in a non-traditional sense, really attack whatever they want to go for and become a success in their own right - I think that's an incredibly exciting thing to be a part of.
"Every time I spoke to them, I wanted to hear more, so it felt like the right place to be.
“We've been crying out for investment for such a long time and this is new and it's different and no one likes change. It is very unique and it’s not connected [to a men’s club] so you don’t have that tribalism of a men's club in that typical sense.
“Maybe I'm biased, but I think there will be a lot of people rooting for London City taking a different path, but there's a long way to go.
“I think it’ll be fun. It’s a fun, new thing and I know that people might be a bit unsure of it to start with, but hopefully we'll win over the hearts and minds of the nation.”
