Brown unsure on GB team

The 31-year-old Everton stopper was a spectator in Germany after an untimely injury ensured she lost her place to Karen Bardsley as Hope Powell's side crashed out in the quarter-finals to France on penalties.

Relegation to the bench was difficult to stomach for Brown, who has more than 70 caps for England, but with qualification for the European Championships getting underway in September, she doesn't have long to wait to fight to regain her place.

But the next major competition for Brown, who made her England debut in 1997, is London 2012 - although political wrangles are plaguing the build-up to Great Britain's Olympic debut.

Wales, Scotland and Northern Ireland are reticent to take part, fearing for their future sovereignty in major competitions, but the British Olympic Association insist they would break the Olympic Charter should they refuse to consider all eligible players for selection.

The BOA recently released a statement claiming an agreement had been reached with the FA but that was met with the ire of the respective home nations.

And as a result Brown is unsure how the women's Great Britain team, which unlike the men's team has no age restrictions, will look next summer - but either way she's desperate to be a part of it.

"I would have loved to have started in the World Cup and of course it was disappointing not to - no-one likes to be on the bench but you have to accept it," said Brown.

"Now I'm looking forward to getting back to Everton and hopefully getting some games under my belt this summer. Looking ahead to the Olympics and the fact we're going to have a team, the first and potentially last ever women's GB team, will be an amazing opportunity. That would be a real highlight, after 15 years of playing for England to get the chance to play for Team GB would be brilliant.

"But the truth is that we don't really know the first thing about what it is going to involve. We don't know about the squad restrictions, who our manager is or when the trials will be.

"But once that gets sorted we are all very excited about the chance of taking part, we have had to watch it on TV enough times without getting the chance to play."

Brown did potentially have the chance to feature at the Beijing 2008 Olympics after a British women's team did qualify but as is perennially the case, politics again got in the way.

As host nation however, Britain will enter a London 2012 team - and Brown believes it's been a long time coming.

"We're all so excited about the prospect of playing at an Olympics, we qualified four years ago but for whatever reason we didn't take a team which was very disappointing," she added.

"We have been pretty jealous that our rivals in the big competitions all the time get to play at the Olympics while we are forced to watch from home.

"The chance to be in front of a home crowd playing at an Olympics is a dream come true, the Olympics are the best of the best for any athlete so of course we want to be there."