Alex Scott: I hate heights and camping but I survived Bear Grylls's Mission Survive

The England footballer saw off competition in the final from choreographer Jason Gardiner and West End star Samantha Barks
8 April 2016

England footballer Alex Scott is an East End girl who doesn’t like the rain and had never even been camping before taking part in Bear Grylls’s gruelling reality show Mission Survive.

But the Arsenal Ladies captain was last night crowned the winner, after enduring two weeks in the African wilderness during which she conquered her fear of heights and swimming, drank her own urine - and underwent “rectal rehydration”.

Scott, 31, who has skippered the England side several times, saw off competition in the final from choreographer Jason Gardiner and West End star Samantha Barks.

She told the Standard: “I’m that girl — I’ve never been camping, I don’t even go to festivals because I hate the cold and the rain. If it starts to rain I’m the first one on the training field to go in and get a hat! So this was totally out of my comfort zone.

“I think it’s because of growing up in the East End, you’re either on the Tube or ... it’s easy to avoid being out in the rain. My first thought for the off season is to go somewhere hot and on the beach.”

The ITV series finished filming in November, but Scott had to keep her victory secret from her teammates and family. In the final the three competitors raced up a 65ft cliff, foraged for seafood and traversed a wire 80ft above the waves.

She admitted her teammates teased her about her on-screen exploits, but said it was worth it.

“The first episode when I drank my own pee, I couldn’t live that down,” she said. “Everybody was teasing me about that. And as the weeks went on, then there was [drinking] the elephant dung [juice] and then the rectal rehydration ... People were like, ‘Really Alex, why?!’

“But do you know what? We have a choice but when Bear throws something at you, you don’t want to let him down.

"You just think, if Bear can do it and he’s fine, you’ve got to do it. It’s like you don’t want to let the headmaster down.”

She said she took part to raise the profile of women’s football, which was in the headlines this week after the US team, who won the World Cup in 2014, demanded the same pay as their male counterparts.

Scott said: “For the USA team to do that, they have every right and they do deserve that because they bring in more revenue than the men do. And they won the World Cup.

“But over here we are in a totally different situation. You can look at the USA and think, ‘We need to start following that’, but we need to start winning World Cups and we’re not at the stage where we’re bringing in that level of revenue.”

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