Going the extra time to make Bergin’s dream come true

By Thomas Conway

In another era, Ceola Bergin might never have kicked a football. She might never have laced her boots and started zipping around the field at age nine. She might never have considered forging a career in elite level football.

But we now live in a different time, a better, more egalitarian epoch. Things are far from balanced - men’s football still has a far superior status. It dominates media coverage, consumes eye watering financial resources, and enjoys the lion’s share of publicity when it comes to advertising and commercial impact. But things are changing - fast.

This Women’s World Cup could prove to be a watershed. Crowd sizes and media coverage are anticipated to dwarf previous records. The standard and level of competition has also risen sharply since the last edition, in France in 2018. And of course, the Republic of Ireland will be there, all clad in green, supported by an army of enthusiastic patrons from all corners of the country.

For 16-year-old Roscrea girl Ceola Bergin, who is currently on the books at Wexford Youths under 19 level and made her senior debut in the League of Ireland last month, the experience will be special. She’ll watch the tournament from afar, but like her mother, Genevieve, she’ll be invested in every kick, every moment of action. She believes Ireland are in a tough group but sees no reason why the girls in green can’t progress to the knockout stages. Should that happen, the country will descend into madness - Italia ‘90 style.

Ceola doesn’t attempt to downplay or conceal it. She has dreams of one day playing for Ireland, of one day pulling on the green jersey and competing in a World Cup. Right now, however, she is laser focused. Wexford Youths is her team, and in many ways, her life as well. She loves the club, and she’s committed to them.

“I’ve been thrown into the deep end a little bit,” she admits.

“In Wexford they’re very welcoming, very open, so that has been a big help. Straight away they made me feel like I was part of the senior squad, part of the team, which was really good. It probably was a bit intimidating at the start, when I first joined, but that’s definitely not the case anymore. I really enjoy being involved with both squads.”

Slightly unconventional

The path that has taken her to this point is slightly unconventional, as her mother Genevieve explains. There was no girls’ soccer team in her local club, Killavilla United, when she was younger, and therefore no real opportunity to play the game competitively. But Ceola was lucky. Talent naturally leads to opportunity, and in her case, it led to a call up to the North Tipp development squad.

“Ceola’s case is actually quite unusual,” Genevieve explains.

“Most people start playing with their club and then move onto development squads. But there was no club team available in Killavilla at that time, so she went straight into the North Tipp set-up. She actually had started playing soccer in school and she was spotted at a five aside tournament, that’s how she was first picked up.

“So, she started playing with North Tipp, and there were actually three girls from the Roscrea area playing with the squad, so that led to the development of a girls’ side in Killavilla. The demand was there you see - there were other girls in the area who wanted to play soccer and who were crying out for a girls’ team. So that was how things first kicked off in Killavilla - it kickstarted a girl’s revival in the club.”

The underage structures for girls within the Roscrea club have blossomed since. The club is now home to multiple different girls’ teams, playing at many different levels. Contrast that to the situation a decade ago, when there were barely enough players to even consider forming a competitive girls’ outfit.

That surge in popularity at grassroots level has been mirrored by the League of Ireland. The formation of the women’s national league was catalysed by a combination of demand and raw desire. The players were there, the enthusiasm was present. It was just a matter of crystallising a proper structure in which teams could compete. And so, it happened. Since its formation, the league has grown and grown, at adult and underage level.

There are eleven teams at senior level in the League of Ireland, but there are nineteen teams at under-17 level, and seventeen teams at under-19 with more set to come on stream in the coming years.

“The league is growing, is expanding all the time,” Ceola added.

“Those competitions would have started off with very small numbers - the under-17 league is only there a couple of years; it has only been established in the past short while. So, the development in the game, across the country from underage to adult level, has been massive.

“Even just this season, the league seems to have reached a whole new level in comparison to last year. Playing the likes of Shamrock Rovers and Peamount United is like playing a final - because they’re so good, they’re such hard opposition to play against. We would have been fighting for a top position last season, but this season we’re not doing as well. Other teams are getting on a lot better. Maybe we haven’t pushed on as much yet, but I think that will come in time.”

Honesty and candour

The Roscrea girl’s honesty and candour is refreshing. She takes a pragmatic attitude to football, recognising that Wexford have failed to reach the heights of last season but refusing to become negative or forlorn. Wexford currently sit sixth in the league table, on seventeen points. They’re a good distance behind the heavy hitters, Peamount and Shelbourne, who sit first and second respectively, on 34 and 28 points. At this stage, Wexford are effectively playing catch-up, but a good second half of the season could open doors both for them collectively and for Ceola as an individual player. She is unequivocal in terms of her future ambitions, which revolve heavily around football.

“Given how much I love soccer, I want to do something that involves soccer. I want it to be part of my future educationally as well as sports wise,” she says.

“In Carlow, they have a Business and Sports degree, so I’ll definitely be considering something like that. But in terms of soccer then, my main goal, is hopefully, one day, to play senior for Ireland. That’s the dream, but I know it’s a big dream and it will be hard to achieve. But just in the short term I’d like to make the Irish under-19s squad, that’s my short-term goal,” said after already lining out at under 17 level for her country in 2022.

A 5th year student at Coláiste Phobail Roscrea, Ceola Bergin has had to make sacrifices. She embraces them, embraces the lifestyle that accompanies elite level football. She trains intensively, three times a week, if not more, and generally plays twice at the weekend, once for the under-19s and once for the seniors.

It isn’t a path for the faint hearted and requires a certain degree of fortitude. The goal is always to become a better player, to develop into a top calibre striker and perhaps, one day, seek a move overseas - to the English Super League or another equivalent. She’s already had American scholarship opportunities presented to her, which in itself is an illustration of just how talented the sixteen-year-old is. As her mother notes, such initiatives would have been unthinkable for a girl less than a decade ago, but the landscape has changed, and so has the culture.

“You’d often hear of boys being offered scholarship opportunities in America, but the playing field is more level now,” Genevieve said.

“Ceola has had a few offers; she’s been contacted by a few different scholarship companies. That just wouldn’t have happened ten years ago. They wouldn’t have put that much effort into the girls’ side of the sport. But now soccer in America is probably the biggest female sport. We’ve all seen the success of their national side. But definitely yes, the opportunities are now there for girls in terms of scholarships and going to America. That wasn’t the case in the past.”

Genuinely optimistic

As for the forthcoming World Cup, both Ceola and Genevieve are buzzing. They’re genuinely optimistic about Ireland’s prospects, even if their group, which contains hosts Australia, Nigeria, and Canada is predicted to be rigorously competitive. Progression to the knock-out stages is not necessarily expected, but it remains well within the realm of the possible. However, irrespective of how Ireland fare, the impact of this tournament is likely to reverberate across the island, sparking a new generation into life, as Genevieve notes.

“With this World Cup, however well the girls do, the effect will be massive” she says.

“It’s going to launch a serious amount of girls from across the country into playing soccer. Girls who aren’t sure about which sport to play, or whether they should play a sport in the first place, are going to watch this World Cup and start to want to play soccer. So really this is huge, it’s a huge opportunity, and we need to make the most of it by putting resources and finances into the underage set-ups, so that the next time round, we’re as competitive or even more competitive.”

Perhaps the world will look back on this tournament as the moment when things finally changed, the moment that women were put on a rightful pedestal alongside men. Perhaps the Irish nation will reflect on it as the moment when Vera Pauw’s national heroes finally arrived on the global stage and thrived.

And perhaps Ceola Bergin will remember it too - as the tournament that confirmed her love of football and accelerated her desire to one day be a part of it all. And perhaps one day she will be. See it, believe it, dream it. Anything is possible.