Football pundit Rachel Brown-Finnis and (inset) during her playing career as Everton goalkeeper
Rachel Brown-Finnis has always done things her way, so joining Everton having been a former Liverpool player didn’t faze her – after all this was the student who transferred over 800 miles halfway through her college playing career to escape the racism she experienced in the Deep South of the USA.
Born in Burnley, Brown, as she was back then (the double-barrel surname is a result of her 2013 marriage to Scouser Ian Finnis, who is Merseyside golf professional Tommy Fleetwood’s caddie), began playing football while in primary school.
She recalled: “They were reluctant to let me join in. It was a case of, okay, if you must play, you better go in goal.”
Becoming a women’s top-flight footballer at the age of just 15 when she joined Liverpool, she had expected to learn from Tracey Davidson, but the former England number one’s abrupt retirement at the aged of 34 three weeks later saw Brown-Finnis thrown in at the deep end.
Despite suffering a 6-0 defeat to Arsenal on her debut at Anfield, Brown finished her first season playing in the FA Women’s Cup final, losing on penalties to Croydon at The Den.
Winning the first of her 82 England caps while still studying for her A-Levels at Nelson and Colne College, in 1998 she went to study for her degree in the USA because she felt the Americans had a more positive attitude to women’s football than in the UK. However, two years into her four-year course, playing for the Crimson Tide soccer team at the University of Alabama, she switched to the Panthers of the University of Pittsburgh.
Speaking to the Daily Telegraph in 2012, Brown said: “There was quite a lot of racism and that didn’t sit easy with me. It’s where the marches and riots were, where Rosa Parks was, and it still felt really raw.
“They were only a generation away from black toilets and white toilets. There were African-American players in the sport but I felt awkward, I couldn’t get my head around why people didn’t hang out together.”
Returning to Merseyside after graduating, Brown, who had qualified as a PE teacher at Liverpool John Moores University, found the Reds no longer playing in the elite division, so she joined Everton.
Some 15 years on from her first FA Women’s Cup final, she helped the Blues defeat Arsenal 3-2 after extra-time having told the ECHO pre-match: “I wouldn’t say I’m in the twilight of my career but it’s been a long time since 1996, so I’m very determined to put things right.”
Brown-Finnis as she’d now become, finally hung up her gloves in 2015 and became a pundit, but as always, her path was not straightforward as she told an audience at a landmark International Women’s Day event at Goodison Park earlier this month as Everton collaborated with WACL (Women in Advertising and Communications Leadership).
The group, founded over a century ago, are campaigning for 50% of CEOs to be female by 2045, and the occasion at the ground affectionately known by Evertonians as ‘The Grand Old Lady,’ which has been given a new lease of life by the women’s team moving in after the Blues relocated to Hill Dickinson Stadium last year, brought together trailblazing women from sport, marketing and leadership for a powerful day of conversation, connection and inspiration.
Brown-Finnis, now 45, was part of a panel discussion headed by Sam Gregory, co-CEO at Tangerine Communications that featured Sue Gregory, CEO of Everton in the Community; Chloe Davies, growth partner at The Unmistakables and Imogen Tazzyman, executive creative director at McCann.
She said: “The Lionesses as you see them today, it wasn’t always like that.
“I played for England and worked for Everton in the Community for seven years, combining it with a full-time job, teaching in a school. We couldn’t start training until all the boys had left – even the under-6s.
“I went to university in the USA. Seeing women’s football over there, it was transformative.
“I remember there was a crowd of 100,000, the women were superheroes, it was on a different planet to what we were used to here. I wished it could just be a tiny bit like that back in the UK.
“Society’s attitude towards women’s football has changed. Now the players are idolised and the kids think of it being ‘the olden days’ when women didn’t play football.”
Brown-Finnis explains how she felt that a move from playing football to commenting on the game was a natural progression for her once she retired from the professional ranks, even if others around her didn’t.
She said: “I knew what I was talking about when it came to football. All I’d ever done was dive around on the floor and think it was normal.
“I’m really lucky to be part of the industry now, working in broadcasting as no woman was doing that in men’s football until three years ago.
“I think I’ve got a lot of resilience. I did a lot of self-scrutinising during my playing career but there were not as many eyes on the game back then.
“I was comfortable, I knew what I was talking about but my work was primarily men’s football and I was a target. I wanted to make things different to those who came after me.
“All those Lionesses in the past who had worked their a***s off, juggling their work and personal lives just to play for England.
“When I first arrived in the green room at BT Sport, I was asked by another pundit: ‘Can I get a latte?’ They saw women as either their partner or in menial roles and that was jarring.”
