sport news 'I don't think it has quite sunk in yet' Rachel Daly talks becoming a household ... trends now
Sitting in the modest front room of her semi-detached house on the outskirts of Wakefield, not long recovered from the hangover that followed her Euro 2022 celebrations, Rachel Daly is trying to comprehend the magnitude of the week just passed. From the historic triumph over Germany in the final at Wembley to serenading 7,000 fans packed into Trafalgar Square and then getting mobbed on her return to Leeds, it has thrown up one surreal experience after the next.
‘I don’t think it has quite sunk in yet,’ she says, having invited The Mail on Sunday into her home for an exclusive interview. ‘Before the Euros, if I went into Leeds, I’d hardly get recognised but yesterday hundreds of people were coming up to me on the street. And it wasn’t just young girls. It was men and women, young and old, all saying well done. I had an 89-year-old woman hug me.’ What did she say? ‘She just thanked me.’
Footage of Daly belting out River Deep, Mountain High in central London, with a Union Flag wrapped around her waist, went out across the primetime news bulletins. A photograph of her performing a cowboy dance on the Wembley turf while wearing a Stetson-styled hat enjoyed viral status, thanks partly to David Beckham’s Twitter endorsement. If Chloe Kelly’s celebration after the winning goal in the final provided the tournament’s outstanding image, Daly’s post-match revelries came a close second.
Rachel Daly's rendition of Mountain High during the Euros celebrations was all across TV
Daly's dance and fetching stepson hat even got the approval of football icon David Beckham
Back home with only her mischievous dog Dexi — she was rescued from the streets of Houston — Daly insists she would not typically seek the spotlight. ‘Everyone thinks that now, but I wouldn’t, honestly!’
Why, then, did the Lionesses encourage her to assume centre stage? ‘What people don’t realise is that was just another rendition of what we did in the dressing room after every match in the tournament,’ says Daly, who plays for Houston Dash in the US. ‘We had a singalong. Sweet Caroline, Rag Doll [her name for River Deep, based on its chorus]. When I got up at Trafalgar Square, it was just that bit more full on. I think it was the euphoria of the fact that we’d made history the night before.’
With the Lionesses serving as de facto backing singers, clapping out a rhythm with the crowd, the scene captured both the spirit in which England attacked the tournament and the enthusiasm that united much of the country behind them.
‘It’s something Sarina [Wiegman, the manager] instilled in us: connect with the fans,’ says Daly, 30. ‘Don’t ignore them, make sure you interact and show people who you are. It’s nice to express who you are and for other people to see we’re not just footballers, we have personalities as well.’
Daly betrays no sign of last week’s revelries, much less the exertions of a tournament in which she played a crucial role, starting at left-back in each of England’s six matches. Instead, she exudes the healthy glow of the professional athlete, albeit one who insists on apologising for the (hardly perceptible) smell of beer in her otherwise pristine kitchen and who paid her first trip to the local pub last week because there was no food in the fridge. The evening did not pass quietly.
‘No one knew I had moved into the village,’ she says, smiling. ‘They couldn’t believe it when they saw me. I don’t mind it but, yeah, I’m still getting used to the attention.’
With 17.4 million BBC viewers making the final the most-watched television event of the year, and another 5.9million streaming the match on digital platforms, Daly’s team-mates are also coming to terms with some form of new-found fame. Not only did the women win a major trophy for the first time but it was, famously, the first such success for any England senior team since the boys of 1966.
Did she feel the burden of this past as the tournament progressed? ‘I don’t think anyone in the team expected to lose at any point,’ she says. ‘It was pure belief that we were going to go all the way, and that was down to Sarina, too. She has given us this confidence.’
It helped that the squad respected Wiegman’s request to ignore all media coverage of their tournament, lest it should add to the pressure on them. Daly also avoided social media and was content to adhere to the restrictions of the Covid bubble that the squad formed once they suffered several cases early on in the tournament.
The win was England's first major trophy for 56 years and the women's first ever finals win
It has been an emotional year for Daly, who sadly lost her father after he developed sepsis
She sharpened her table-tennis skills, followed Love Island and enjoyed boat trips on the bend of the Thames close to the team hotel. For all that Daly relished every aspect of the Euros, however, in the back of her mind there was always the thought that her late father Martyn was missing her career pinnacle. Inevitably, winning only sharpened the sense of loss that she has felt since he died last September, aged just 56.
‘It’s been the hardest year of my life,’ she admits. ‘It’s crazy because I’ve had so much success as well. I don’t think a minute goes by where something doesn’t trigger a memory of him. That’s why I posted on social media at the end of the final that it was for him. It was devastating to think he couldn’t be there to celebrate and to see what we’d just done and witnessed the things that I’d achieved.’
Martyn, once a semi-professional forward with Harrogate Town, had fostered Daly’s love of football. She recalls him putting her in goal over the park and blasting shots in her direction. They travelled to Leeds United matches when they lit up the Premier League in the early Noughties, often listening to
