{"id":597027,"date":"2025-11-27T11:23:12","date_gmt":"2025-11-27T11:23:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/597027\/"},"modified":"2025-11-27T11:23:12","modified_gmt":"2025-11-27T11:23:12","slug":"it-crushed-my-confidence-ive-never-got-over-it-karen-carney-on-online-abuse-and-how-strictly-is-rebuilding-her-strictly-come-dancing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/597027\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018It crushed my confidence. I\u2019ve never got over it\u2019: Karen Carney on online abuse \u2013 and how Strictly is rebuilding her | Strictly Come Dancing"},"content":{"rendered":"

The qualities that made Karen Carney an unstoppable winger on the football pitch \u2013 her speed and attack, and the sheer relentlessness of both \u2013 are more of a hindrance in the ballroom, for some of the dances at least. As the emerging star of this year\u2019s Strictly Come Dancing<\/a>, she has had to learn to slow down, stand up straighter, to be softer, and it\u2019s taken a lot of hard work. On week eight, she had just performed the American Smooth, and her pro partner Carlos Gu was tearfully describing Carney\u2019s work ethic. Who could watch her trying to hold back her own tears, chewing on emotion like a particularly tough bit of gristle, and fail to see a woman who was giving it everything?<\/p>\n

It was Carney\u2019s dream to be on Strictly. The former England footballer, now TV pundit and podcaster, has just made it through week nine, performing an astonishing pasodoble at the all-important Blackpool week, and something will have gone very wrong if she doesn\u2019t reach the final. The show has been struggling this year \u2013 a man described as a Strictly \u201cstar\u201d was reportedly arrested<\/a> in October on suspicion of rape last year, and the announcement from its longtime hosts Tess Daly and Claudia Winkleman that this will be their final series has been destabilising. But Carney says that for her, it has been an overwhelmingly positive time. \u201cThere\u2019s a team spirit within the cast. Behind [the scenes], the team can\u2019t do enough for you to have the best experience.\u201d<\/p>\n

Whatever happens, she says the show has already changed her. \u201cI feel like I\u2019m being rewired,\u201d she says. \u201cFor 30 years, all I\u2019ve done is football. When you retire, that\u2019s really difficult. I\u2019ve been able to show who I am, and remind myself of who I am as well. I\u2019ve never been so happy. I\u2019ve never smiled so much.\u201d<\/p>\n

To survive in football \u2013 she retired in 2019, before the women\u2019s game was as celebrated as it is now \u2013 and as a female pundit, Carney has had to steel herself. \u201cI\u2019ve pretty much been told I shouldn\u2019t really play football, and then I shouldn\u2019t really talk about it. So you have to be really resilient, maybe play a character that has to fight, whereas \u2013 which I think I\u2019ve been able to show on Strictly \u2013 I\u2019m quite soft and pretty sensitive. I\u2019m a gentle human being. Sometimes, sport doesn\u2019t allow you to show that.\u201d<\/p>\n

Performing the paso doble with Carlos. Photograph: Guy Levy\/BBC\/PA<\/p>\n

Carney burst on to the show with a leaderboard-topping jive. \u201cIt was a lot of kicking \u2013 you\u2019d hope I\u2019d be good at kicking,\u201d she says. But the Latin styles and the slower ballroom dances have been difficult. As a child, Carney was diagnosed with Scheuermann\u2019s disease, which causes a curvature of the spine. She has always had to overcompensate for her lack of full mobility, though she didn\u2019t need perfect posture for football.<\/p>\n

She didn\u2019t quite realise how much of a challenge it would be on Strictly, where the \u201cframe\u201d is vital. \u201cIt is really hard for me to get in frame. I physically can\u2019t do it, but we\u2019ve worked so hard on everything else around it to give me a fighting chance.\u201d The work has paid off. Carney\u2019s Argentine tango, performed in a flat cap to the Peaky Blinders theme song (Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds\u2019 Red Right Hand), in honour of her home city Birmingham, will surely become one of Strictly\u2019s all-time greats.<\/p>\n

Carney is in the car on the way to training with Gu, to start work on their \u201ccouples\u2019 choice\u201d dance for this weekend. The song \u2013 Born This Way, Lady Gaga\u2019s anthem of self-expression, joy and diversity \u2013 is meaningful to them both. Carney loves its opening lyrics: \u201cMy mama told me when I was young \/ \u2018We are all born superstars\u2019\u201d. Her mum, she says, \u201cnever told me not to follow my dreams. That line epitomises everything that she told me.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a child, Carney danced before football took over. She was the youngest of three girls. Their dad was a firefighter, and their mum still works for Sainsbury\u2019s, a job she has had for more than 30 years. She credits her parents for her work ethic: the graft that got her a place on the England squad, a broadcasting career that was initially well out of her comfort zone, a master\u2019s degree and MBA (despite, she says with a laugh, being \u201cnot academic at all\u201d and having dyslexia), and several 10s on Strictly.<\/p>\n

The family supported Birmingham City, and Carney\u2019s sister, Sarah, loved football \u2013 she became a referee and coach, but she would have loved to have been a player. \u201cIn terms of athleticism, she\u2019s far more talented than me,\u201d says Carney. \u201cBut being 12 years older, if it was hard for me to play, she had no chance. She never had any opportunities.\u201d<\/p>\n

As a girl, even in the late 90s and early 2000s (she is 38), Carney had to justify her love of football. \u201cI got told I shouldn\u2019t play. I got bullied for it, really.\u201d It was harder to deal with as a teenager. \u201cYou can understand why, in women\u2019s sport, there\u2019s such a drop-off [at that age]. The overriding thing was I had support from my family, and my coaches, so I was able to stay in it, and I was so obsessed with football.\u201d Her mum always had a ball and red plastic cones in the car, \u201cso wherever we went, I was able to play a game with someone or do some skills.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 11, Carney joined the then quaintly named Birmingham City Ladies, and at 16, she left home on a scholarship to go to Loughborough College, where she boarded with other children who were gifted at sport. At 17, she made her England debut. \u201cIt was my dream to play for England, to play with Rachel Yankey and Kelly Smith, and I got to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Carney playing in the Women\u2019s World Cup in 2019. Photograph: Xinhua\/REX\/Shutterstock<\/p>\n

Soon afterwards, she joined Arsenal Ladies, winning the top trophies that season including the Women\u2019s Premier League and the women\u2019s FA and Uefa cups. Around that time, Carney\u2019s mother \u2013 now regularly seen cheering in the Strictly audience <\/strong>\u2013 <\/strong>was ill. Football was, she says, \u201ca big distraction for me\u201d. It must have been a lot to go through, so young. \u201cI lived away from home, my mum was ill, and football and studying for my A-levels, it was a lot,\u201d she says. \u201cThere\u2019s a little fighter in me somewhere.\u201d<\/p>\n

She would have to draw on her resilience again a few years later when, signing for Chicago Red Stars and playing for the professional league in the US, she had a knee operation that meant she couldn\u2019t play. She sank into depression. Before long, she was self-harming and addicted to sleeping pills. \u201cI was in a pretty bad way. I think that has been the hardest thing I\u2019ve ever had to overcome,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Emma Hayes, who had been her coach at Arsenal and then in the US, urged her to return to the UK, even though she had another year left on her contract. \u201cI came back purely to \u2026 save my life, pretty much.\u201d Birmingham City wanted her back, but she told them football couldn\u2019t be her priority while she got better. \u201cThey were, like, we know you\u2019re not in a good place, but we will do our best to take care of you.\u201d<\/p>\n

What helped? \u201cMy friends,\u201d she says. \u201cPeople around me dragged me through and I owed it to them to try and fight, and it\u2019s an amazing feeling when you can get through that. It\u2019s hard to talk about it, and I couldn\u2019t have done it without people [around me].\u201d Eventually Carney fell back in love with the game and finished her career on a high, having played for Chelsea, earned 144 caps for England and played in four World Cups before retiring in 2019.<\/p>\n

In 2022, she chaired a government review<\/a> on the future of women\u2019s football. \u201cI knew how difficult it was for my sister. I know how difficult it was for my teammates. It was really important to me to get [the review] right, because I want girls to always have the best opportunities.\u201d Among its recommendations were minimum salaries (this season, Women\u2019s Super League players will be guaranteed a minimum salary<\/a> of \u00a340,000, still some way off the average \u00a34.7m<\/a> earned by male Premier League players), improved pathways for talented girls and vastly better training facilities.<\/p>\n

In the run-up to the 2012 Olympics, Carney had to train, alone, in her local park. \u201cSo many times dogs nicked my ball, wee\u2019d on my bottle, nicked my cones.\u201d Dog walkers would come over to chat, not realising they were interrupting her training. \u201cAnd the mud. The mud was so thick.\u201d We\u2019re both laughing, but it\u2019s shocking really. \u201cA lot of us in that [GB] team that I grew up with, we had to go to the local parks and train ourselves because we didn\u2019t have the facilities, the coaching.\u201d<\/p>\n

How does she feel when she sees how the women\u2019s game has changed? \u201cProud,\u201d she says. She laughs and says she feels like a \u201csuperfan\u201d when some of her Lioness friends come to watch Strictly. \u201cI forget they\u2019re my pals. I look at them, and I\u2019m in such awe of what incredible women they are.\u201d<\/p>\n

When she watches the games, \u201cthe speed is improving, the quality is improving and it makes me so happy that the product is getting better and our female footballers are just thriving.\u201d Does she wish she had been born 10 years later and was playing now? \u201cNo, I\u2019m really happy with my career. I\u2019m so grateful and humbled for the opportunities I had. You ask any Lioness, our job is to always make it better for the next generation.\u201d<\/p>\n

When Carney turned 30, she knew retirement was coming, and she prepared as much as she could \u2013 female players, especially of Carney\u2019s generation, weren\u2019t retiring with the financial riches of their male counterparts. She hadn\u2019t planned to be a pundit. When she was still playing, Birmingham City offered her some work commentating for their video channel during a period of injury. She says she was swayed by the free ticket to a game, and they were going to pay her; the extra money would pay for recovery equipment. She also wanted to teach herself to think more analytically. \u201cAt 26, I knew I was slowing down, and my mindset was: if I can\u2019t beat someone physically, I can tactically out-think them.\u201d Becoming a pundit, she says, \u201cwas always to make me a better footballer\u201d. But she found she liked it.<\/p>\n

Becoming a pundit, \u2018was always to make me a better footballer\u2019. Photograph: Nick Potts\/PA<\/p>\n

Online abuse is familiar to most female pundits, particularly those working in football. Carney, who has worked for Sky and ITV, among others, was already battle-hardened by social media. As a player, one of many abusive posts wished \u201ccancer, leukaemia and rape\u201d on her, which prompted the FA to urge the police<\/a> and tech companies to act; but her experience as a pundit has been on another level. In December 2020, Carney received thousands of abusive and sexist messages after comments she made about Leeds United. She deleted her Twitter account, and the following year said she\u2019d had suicidal thoughts<\/a> at the time.<\/p>\n

Even now, she looks close to tears. \u201cThat crushed my confidence. It floored me as a human, completely floored me. I\u2019ve never got over it. I\u2019m more emotional about that than what I dealt with in America. I\u2019ve not dealt with this.\u201d The pile-on felt, she says, \u201clike the whole world was caving in on me. I\u2019ve never experienced anything like it.\u201d<\/p>\n

But she won\u2019t be pushed out of punditry by people who think women have no place commenting on the men\u2019s game: \u201cThe greatest gift that was ever given to me is my love of football,\u201d she says. Still, she is hypervigilant, in her work \u2013 \u201cthe amount of effort I go to and the research and the prep I have to do is because I never want to make a mistake\u201d \u2013 and on social media, where she restricts who can comment on her Instagram posts.<\/p>\n

Dancing her leaderboard-topping jive on Strictly. Photograph: Guy Levy\/BBC\/PA<\/p>\n

When Strictly Come Dancing offered her a place, she thought it might be a way to restore her confidence \u2013 and it has. \u201cThat\u2019s why I\u2019ll be forever grateful to Strictly, because it is rebuilding me.\u201d After that first week\u2019s jive, she says, \u201cI was blown away by so much positivity. I don\u2019t really think I\u2019ve had much positivity about what I do for a long time, so I was overwhelmed.\u201d<\/p>\n

It feels good to be away from football for the first time in decades \u2013 Gu, she says with a laugh, knows nothing about the game. \u201cIf anyone\u2019s going to get confidence out of me, it\u2019s Carlos. Because he\u2019s unapologetically himself, I feel like I can be.\u201d Other people have noticed: one of her former coaches, watching her on the show, told her she was seeing the spark in Carney that she remembers seeing in her when she was a kid playing football. No pressure, just joy, doing everything she had ever dreamed of.<\/p>\n