Carol Brown played for Camden Town Football Club

A TRAILBLAZER who could bang a goal in from any angle, Carol Brown’s prowess on muddy Regent’s Park pitches was legendary. She could play up front, a silky-skilled target woman, or run the midfield like a general. F

or decades, Camden Town Football Club benefitted from her talent on the pitch and her enthusiasm off it.

Carol, who has died aged 59, was a rare talent who used her love for the game to inspire hundreds of other women to kick a ball.

She was born in March 1963 in Dumfries, Scotland. Her father Archie was in insurance while her mother May was a hairdresser.

One of three siblings, Carol, aged 17, studied for a diploma in childcare and education in Carlisle. Using her training, she headed to Canada to work for a family there and this opened her eyes to a new life of travelling, ski-ing, and an adventurous outdoor world.

Settling in the Holly Lodge estate, Highgate, and then Camden Town, where she would live for 40 years, Carol started working for Camden Council as a sports development officer.

She would later train in forestry at the Capel Manor agricultural college and worked for a forest school.

Carol first laced up her boots for Camden Town WFC in the late 1990s.

As teammate Dr Lucy O’Rourke recalled: “Unlike most of the team at the time, Carol could actually play football.

She was skilful, fast, light on her feet. She put the rest of us to shame but we at least got to watch her bossing everyone around in midfield and using her silky footwork to dance around girls half her age.”

A laid-back person, it was on the pitch where her competitiveness came out.

She would never lose her temper after the final whistle, but she could have rages when the game was on – at herself, for not adding to her tally of goals.

Passers-by in Regent’s Park would stop and applaud overhead kicks, volleys and free kicks. Her charm and sense of humour created a culture which meant the club went from strength to strength. This was in the years where the women’s game did not command respect and Carol was instrumental in helping women discover their talents and simply enjoy the sport.

Dr O’Rourke recalled: “She was also the team’s token lesbian, a position she took great pride in, and she was outraged when other gay women began to join the team, stealing her thunder.”

Carol Brown

Carol worked at the Talacre Sports Centre, and one day she was invited to a posh party, including champagne and canapes at The Ivy.

She dashed there in her council tracksuit to mingle with a Spice Girl, fashion designer Ozwald Boateng, a handful of glamorous models and the heptathlete Denise Lewis. Carol cut a dash through the well-dressed crowd, doing her best to persuade Ms Lewis she had a future playing up front for CTWFC.

Later, she took coaching badges and when she fell ill, she still travelled to Hackney Marshes to put her team through their paces. Friends say one of her few faults was her inability to realise how good she was. She brushed off praise and would turn kind words back on the person giving them.

As well as football, she liked rugby, roaring the Scottish team on.

She also loved ska music, Thai food and wood carving, from whittling to using a chainsaw. Carol enjoyed sessions of mindfulness, Tai Chi and meditation.

While not religious, friends recall Carol speaking of leaving this world, going into the sky and feeling this would be a peaceful place to be where she could be a star.

Her friends say her brightness will live on within them.