North Tipp to the fore in the growth of girls soccer

This World Cup is barely a week old and already the quest for sporting immortality is starting to take shape.

The narrative will be written and redrafted many times before the climax in the Sydney Olympic Stadium on August 20th, but whichever team prevails won’t just have won a World Cup. They will have etched their names into history as the victors of a competition that fundamentally reshaped the global sporting landscape, a tournament that captured the imagination like never before and placed women’s football on its rightful pedestal alongside that of men.

Sure, the salaries might never be the same, but the status of women’s football and by implication women’s sport will be further elevated by this World Cup. And the trickle down effects will be felt in all corners of the globe - from the favelas of Rio and Sao Paulo to the pitches of Ballymackey and Shinrone.

The fact that Ireland are competing renders the tournament all the more intriguing. Vera Pauw’s side are not expected to progress from the group stages, but irrespective of how events unfold down under, her team has already inspired a new generation of footballers on this island - both male and female.

But all of this is happening for a reason. Investment and interest in women’s and girls’ football has skyrocketed in recent years. Women’s sport is entering a golden era, and soccer is leading the way. The national team might be the prime ambassadors, but deep down, at the grassroots, a community of volunteers has emerged determined to make soccer accessible to girls of all ages, of all backgrounds.

Among those volunteers is Ursula Scully, a Derry native who has been an adopted Nenagh woman for over twenty years. In that time, she has run a business, raised a family, and helped elevate the stature of girls’ football in North Tipperary like few others have. As she emphasises, she hasn’t done it alone, but Ursula has been the driving force behind the juggernaut that is the North Tipp Schoolgirls’ League, taking the region to new heights in terms of player development and national significance.

“North Tipperary is probably supplying more girls into the National League per capita than other league around the country,” he reveals.

“We currently have eight girls from our league playing at underage national level - we have them at under-15s, under-16s, under-17s, under-18s and under-19s. So that’s a massive achievement, particularly when you consider that you probably have around 600 or 700 girls competing for those places.

“But that’s not all. We did really well in the Gaynor Cup recently - we were unlucky not to win the whole thing outright. And, on July 30th, we have an under-19 team contesting a national inter-league final. It’s the first time we’ve ever entered a team into the competition. It’s a very, very young team as well - we went in there just to gather experience, but we’re now in a national final against Galway in Jackman Park. So that is massive, massive for North Tipperary.”

Unthinkable

Such achievements would have been unthinkable just a decade ago. For years, North Tipperary was a forgotten outpost of Irish soccer, a land of hurlers and camogie players who occasionally spent the winter months kicking footballs around marshy pitches with no real point or purpose. But then everything changed. Nowadays, North Tipperary is an exemplar in terms of development structures and overall organisational efficiency. The league has blossomed, from a male and a female perspective. Droves of young girls are now being incorporated into the system from an early stage, beginning their football careers with their clubs and gradually progressing on to development squads and emerging talent programs. The women and girls’ dimension of the league has evolved dramatically, and now ranks among the best in the country. The female game is thriving in North Tipp. Ursula witnesses it firsthand.

“We’ve made huge strides in recent years,” Ursula added.

“The North Tipp league, in the last seven or eight years, has really really done a huge amount of work in terms of the women’s game. And that has been backed up by the clubs. We have a really good variety of clubs around the league which are now concentrating on and putting resources into women’s and girls’ football - Ballymackey, Killavilla up in Roscrea, Lough Derg, Moneygall. Moneygall is a real upcoming girls’ club - they’re doing some fantastic stuff out there, but it’s the same across the league.

“You have individuals in clubs who are just leading the way - the likes of Brian Brooks up in Killavilla, John Delaney in Ballymackey, Thomas Dwan and Nicole McKay in Holycross, Mark Moroney over in Moneygall and then Ray Hickey and Becky Barber in Lough Derg. So, all of those people have been instrumental in driving the girls’ game forward in their respective clubs.”

Ursula describes North Tipp as a “flagship league” in terms of regional high-performance. There is now a steady stream of talented young players emerging from the league and securing berths in regional development squads. Unlike in times past, there is a pathway there for aspirant players. And it isn’t confined by age either. Early developers can slot into the emerging talent system at ten or eleven, but development squads extend right up to under-18s, thus facilitating late bloomers. There are opportunities everywhere, regardless of age or ability. As Ursula notes, the higher the number of participants, the greater the rate of development.

“For us, participation is key,” she adds.

“Participation and development. Because when you get enough numbers in playing, you’ll develop players at a faster rate, and the good players will emerge from that. So, numbers and participation are huge, that’s what we try to focus on. And you know, with the right structures in place, you will develop players. Girls who were maybe average players at twelve or thirteen, are now sitting on international panels at under-16 and 17. And because coaches saw something in those players, they gave them an opportunity to develop.”

Despite all the development initiatives and player resources, carving a pathway into the professional game remains hugely difficult. Players like Irish captain Katie McCabe, who plays her club football at Arsenal, are special talents. They have that extra touch of class, that X-factor, that sprinkle of stardust. Increasingly however, professional clubs are sending scouts further afield in search of potential, rather than just raw talent alone. Players can get picked up for a variety of different reasons, for having particular attributes that a coach might be seeking.

When it comes to the professional game however, there remains serious disparities between males and females, particularly in relation to wages and finance. The average salary of a Women’s Super League footballer is £47,000 per year. It’s difficult to pin down an exact figure when it comes to male salaries, but analysis conducted by the BBC suggests that your average Premier League footballer may earn as much as one-hundred times that of their counterparts in the women’s league.

Last year, England captain Leah Williamson reportedly took in £200,000 for her exploits with Arsenal. That’s a handsome enough salary, but comparatively speaking, the England men’s captain, Harry Kane, earns that same amount of money in a week at Tottenham. Make no mistake, the financial gap is huge, and although in time it might become narrower, we’re unlikely to ever witness complete equality in terms of club level earnings.

Attractive career route

But that doesn’t mean becoming a professional soccer player isn’t an attractive career route for those with sufficient talent and guile. The process of making it to the top is ridiculously difficult, but it begins at the grassroots, under the guidance and mentorship of figures like Ursula Scully and FAI Development Officer Tracy Gleeson. Some years ago, the Derry native identified a gap in the local market. Girls’ soccer did exist, but only in a limited form. It was effectively confined to just one or two age-groups. Slowly but surely, Ursula and her fellow volunteers developed a new model, a system in which age was not a barrier or a constraint.

“The first thing we did was, we made football available at every age group,” she reveals.

“Previously, you would have had girls’ football at under-12s and under-14s, but that was all. A lot of kids were missing out. So, what we did was, we provided football for every age group - 10s, 11s, 12s, 13s and so on.

“We run leagues, if we can, at every age group, and that way every child gets an opportunity to play every week. And the league invested time and money into emerging talent programmes and development sides for upcoming players, and they’ve been very successful as well. Now it took time to get going, but we’re reaping the benefits of it now.”

They’re also reaping the benefits of Ireland’s success at international level. Securing World Cup qualification was a shot in the arm for clubs and players the length and breadth of the country. It effectively supercharged enthusiasm for the sport and drove a marked rise in participation levels nationally. These coming days and weeks will further boost that momentum.

Were Ireland to progress from the group stages, it would amount to a sensation, potentially creating an atmosphere reminiscent of Italia ‘90. But regardless of how it all unfolds, Pauw’s team have already imprinted their legacy into the Irish football landscape. Women and girls are playing football, in never-before-seen numbers, and the status of the game has surged. North Tipperary is a microcosm of Irish football as a whole. The league is flourishing, the academies are thriving, and the mood is exclusively positive. This World Cup could not have come at a better time. The next generation is watching and waiting. Someday soon some of them might be donning green jerseys at a World Cup, and they’ll have volunteers like Ursula to thank. This is a landmark moment. Football is evolving, and the playing field is finally beginning to even.