Unsuitable for Females' by Carrie Dunn

Author:Carrie Dunn
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Birlinn

Karen Walker was one of the biggest stars of women’s football in the 1980s and 1990s. Lean, pacy and with an unerring eye for goal combined with a deadly shot, she tormented defences as she fired Belles to many trophies and led the line for England.

One of her early mentors had observed that her strengths simply could not be coached into a player.

‘I knew I wasn’t, say, as skilful as everyone else, but I knew how to score goals, I knew the place to be in, and he always used to say to me I had something you couldn’t teach,’ she said. ‘I was a good example of it: doesn’t matter that you’ve not had that coaching, you can just do it at the highest level, and thankfully I did.’

She was also one of the stars of the documentary and the book, and had made it clear to Pete Davies that she was not at all bothered about the consternation it might cause at the FA. In fact, Davies’ book suggested that Walker was well aware of the reaction that would be triggered at the FA and within the England set-up by a bird’s eye view of the Belles, aired on national television. However, Walker was unperturbed by the chance of a wave of negativity towards her or her team; she played football because she loved it, and she played football with her friends. Her motivation was not to win trophies, but to make memories. Even when she was injured, she was adamant she still wanted to show up at training.

Less rowdy than some of her team-mates, Walker was working in the income support team at the then-Department of Social Security in Rotherham, South Yorkshire, as she had been for the previous seven years, since she was 18; and the television cameras followed her to work there, and back to her domestic life. Her team-mates would hail her goalscoring exploits with bursts of song, declaring that they were walking in a Walker wonderland.

Davies’ book characterised her as a more thoughtful, gentle person than some of her team-mates, with a tendency to prematch nerves, forcing a desperate toilet break in the minutes before heading out on to the pitch for kick-off. The Walker portrayed in his book, however, was not without some rough edges; he mentioned that she would have a kickabout with anybody, including a group of teenage lads, who clubbed together to buy her some cider as a thank-you gift. She was a woman of a thousand small kindnesses: her words of support and guidance for young players, but also her empathy for the people she worked with who were scared or angry because of their unemployment and urgent need for money. It was evident that Walker appreciated her good fortune, much of which had stemmed from football; she was very well aware that had she not had the chance to express herself on the pitch, her life may have gone in a very different direction.

Walker also told Davies

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