Pauline Cope was one of England’s best ever goalkeepers, indeed in the mid-1990’s her first national team Head Coach Ted Copeland reckoned she was the best in the world.
‘Copey,’ as she was known throughout the women’s football community, won 60 international caps in a playing career that at club level saw her collect three FA Women’s Premier League titles, four FA Cup winners’ medals and four League Cup triumphs while playing variously for Millwall Lionesses, Arsenal, Croydon and Charlton Athletic.
But as good as she undoubtedly was, 1969-born Cope (Cope-Boanas after marrying her Charlton manager Keith Boanas in 2010) reckons she could have been even better with the specialist coaching that keepers who followed in her footsteps have benefitted from - especially after the women’s game became increasingly more professional in the wake of the FA Women’s Super League’s inauguration four years after her 2006 retirement.
“There was no goalkeeper coaching when I was a youngster,” says Cope-Boanas looking back on an eventful career. “When I was a kid playing for Millwall, I was in the second team but had training with the first team and (manager) Alan May used to have me diving on to little gym mats that he’d put down on a concrete floor.
“I could work on technique, but there was no talk back then of stuff like strength training or nutrition. I was gone 30 before I had any personal goalkeeper coaching, when I joined Charlton, and I think I excelled once I’d started training with (coach) Mickey Coles and twice a month with (Charlton men’s first team keeper) Dean Kiely.
“The confidence they gave me was unbelievable - I could’ve taken on the world. If I’d have had that sort of coaching when I was 15 or 20 I could’ve been a better keeper than I actually became. So I admit that I envy the goalkeepers who’ve come along after me and had quality coaching from an early age. But good luck to them - and I wouldn’t change my career, I loved it.”
Cope-Boanas had good reason for enjoying her career and accomplishments, though diving on to small gym mats placed on concrete remains a moot point. Those early days at Millwall stood her in good stead despite the lack of specialist coaching, and she was to have three different spells at the club, broken up with two stints at Arsenal.
She entered the League as a Millwall player at its inception in 1991, but it was with Arsenal that she won her first major trophy as the Gunners beat Doncaster Belles 4-0 in a 1993-94 League Cup final which was so delayed that it was not staged until three months into the 1994-95 season.
By the end of the same campaign Cope-Boanas had a further two winners’ medals in her grasp after Arsenal completed a League and FA Cup double. As good as that felt, however, there was better to follow after she returned to Millwall and in 1996-97 won the League Cup - beating Everton 2-1 in the final - and the FA Cup with a 1-0 victory over Wembley in a final played at Upton Park, the then home ground of her beloved West Ham United.
“That was unbelievable,” recalls the keeper, who captained her team on the day. “As a kid I had three dreams - to play for England, to win the FA Cup and, as a West Ham fan, to play at Upton Park. I never thought they’d come to fruition, especially playing at Upton Park, so do it and win the match was one of the best days of my life.”
There were more great days to come after Cope-Boanas made her third and final departure from Millwall, this time to join Croydon in 1998. “I went to Croydon to be with my mates and have a laugh,” she says candidly. “As a club we weren’t a name, we had nothing (financially), and although we had really good players it was all about playing with my pals and it was two seasons of having the most fun times of my football career.”
As it turned out it was not just fun but trophies too, Croydon clinching the FA WPL title in 1998-99 and then achieving a League and FA Cup double in a 1999-2000 campaign that was the high-achieving club’s swansong ahead of being contentiously taken over by Charlton.
“There was a lot of anger about the situation,” says Cope-Boanas, “but in a meeting most of the players voted in favour of the move and it went through, although our player-manager Deb Bampton would not have it. That was a pity because she knew her stuff - she’d been England captain, which speaks for itself. But it meant we would be in a far more professional environment.”
Croydon had been the country’s top team in the late 1990’s, but as the team now known as Charlton Athletic kicked off the new millennium they had to deal with a resurgent Arsenal and, in Fulham, not just England’s but Europe’s first full-time professional women’s team.
The six seasons before Cope-Boanas’ retirement, with husband Keith as manager, nevertheless brought some significant successes as well as several near-misses. The club’s first trophy was a sweet one, beating Fulham 1-0 in the 2003-04 League Cup final after knocking out Arsenal in the semi.
“Fulham had gone semi-pro by then,” notes Cope-Boanas, “but both them and Arsenal had more money in their women’s team than we had and so winning our first trophy in the way we did was not just a great feeling but very satisfying for everyone involved in our club.”
It was also satisfying to Cope-Boanas and Co that the victory was revenge for the previous season’s FA Cup final defeat by the Cottagers. But they then had the dissatisfaction of losing to Arsenal in the 2003-04 FA Cup final and to the same opponents in the 2004-05 League Cup final.
The last final that Cope-Boanas played in, however, saw her collect the 11th winners’ medal of her career just a couple of months before her retirement. Fittingly in the 2005-06 League Cup final, she produced an outstanding performance to help beat arch rivals Arsenal 2-1.
“I’d decided early in the season to retire,” she reveals, ‘because it had got to the point where at the start of every game I just wanted it to finish. But I regretted it later, I was 37 but could have gone on for another couple of seasons.
“It was great to finish off with another Cup winner’s medal though, especially beating Arsenal. They were the best, and if you beat them you knew you’d cracked it.”
As she hung up her goalkeeping gloves her Charlton captain Casey Stoney, who also skippered England, summed up the feelings of many about Cope-Boanas when she said: "If I'm honest I don't think she can be replaced. She's the best goalkeeper I've ever seen.”
So she was finished with playing, but - while building a successful career in the police force - Cope-Boanas went into goalkeeper coaching in the 2020’s as she looked back on her own early days in the game.
“I just felt I could pass on my experience and knowledge to help young keepers,” she says. “It was daunting when I first got on to coaching badge courses, for one thing there was a lot of different terminology being used to when I was a player. But the principles hadn’t change and the job was the same - it’s all about keeping the ball out of the net.”
“I never played for fun, I wanted to win every match and I certainly wouldn’t get intimidated myself. I wasn’t scared of anyone and I wouldn’t let anyone bully me or any of my team mates.
“I admit I was short-fused and used some colourful language at times. If I’d known then what I know now about mental health issues I think I might possibly have been diagnosed with ADHD (attention deficit hyperactivity disorder), and I’m not embarrassed to admit it.
“But that wasn’t me in every aspect of my life. I can remember one time when I was at Charlton, we signed Suzanne Abbot from Reading and a couple of weeks after she’d joined us I was chatting with her and asked how she was enjoying being with us.
“She said to me, ‘I’ve got to say, you’re not what I thought you were like. I was a bit dreading coming here because of you and your reputation and how I’ve seen you on the pitch. But after chatting with you a few times, I reckon you’re a big teddy bear!’ And I think that’s how people who know me see me, not as the big baddie who a lot of folk saw me as back in the day.”
Back in the day many fans of opposition teams did indeed think of Cope-Boanas as ‘the big baddie.’ “I used to have fans behind my goal having a go at me right through matches,” she recalls, “but I never let them get to me - and at the end of matches, especially ones we’d won, it was lovely to turn around and wind them up.“But I also had a great relationship with fans of some clubs, like Donny Belles for instance. In one game towards the end of my career, one Donny supporter shouted out at me, ‘Hey Copey, ain’t it about time you retired?’
“But later in the game I had a one-on-one with (Belles striker) Kaz Walker, made the save then smashed the ball upfield and 10 seconds later we scored. And the same Donny fan shouted, ‘By ‘eck Copey, yer still the best in League.’ And that was nice.
As fierce a competitor as she was, Cope-Boanas was also a fun-lover and showed as much in a post-career charity match which was being refereed by top official Howard Webb.
She says: “Howard said to me, ‘I want you to mouth off at me so I can give you a card.’ One thing I’d never done in my career was be disrespectful to officials, I never once got sent off for verbals. But I said to Howard, ‘you’ve given me the green light, so just wait for it!’
“When it happened and he showed me the yellow card, I snatched it off him at flashed it back at him. I don’t know what the crowd thought, but Howard and me just fell about laughing.”
Pauline Cope-Boanas: a fun-loving, raging bull of a teddy bear.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: Images from Gavin Ellis/TGSPHOTO and Simon Mooney for The FA’s Official Photo Library.
