THE IRISH WOMEN’S football team talk a lot about impact.
“For us, fundamentally as a team, we don’t just want to create history. We want to leave a legacy,” Katie McCabe said yesterday on the eve of her World Cup debut.
When she leads Ireland out to play Australia at 8pm (11am Irish time), there will be about 75,000 people watching on in a sold-out Stadium Australia, where athletics legend Sonia O’Sullivan secured an Olympic medal 23 years ago.
It’s thought that more than one-third of that 75,000-strong crowd will be shouting for the girls in green, rather than the Matildas, despite their star player Sam Kerr telling reporters yesterday she believed the entire stadium would be on her side.
With so many Irish living in Australia, the opening game has become a catalyst for long-promised reunions between friends. But there is also a travelling contingent of about 4,000 people who flew from Ireland during the past week.
While their demographic is largely young, female and sports loving, there are also families, married couples, retired friends and parent-adult child pairings making the trip.
There are League of Ireland aficionados, Coygig super fans and the odd bandwagoner.
Spotting the Irish fan is not a difficult journalistic task. Neither is getting them to talk to you.
Many were seeking out a buzz and a chat with a fellow fan once they landed at Sydney airport and were greeted by Fifa Women’s World Cup signs.
“There is a lot of good vibes across the place once people spot the jersey and scarves,” says Liz Ferris, who is wearing a Bray Wanderers jersey when we first meet her (we are on our second and third meetings given the moth/flame nature of Irish people abroad).
“I’ve followed League of Ireland for years and to see the women do well at this stage has been fantastic,” her daughter Aine Breathnach says by way of explanation for the world-crossing trip.
“I was in France in 2016 for the Euros so to see the women reach this height is fantastic. Hopefully, fingers crossed, it’ll continue.”
Liz says Aine decided to come when she realised her mother was going with or without her.
“I’m here to take care of the others,” quips their friend, Pauline, to a quick retort of: “To make sure we go home.”
The trio are, like many others who travelled, extremely optimistic and have tickets for the knock-out stages if Ireland make it through their group of death.
“We’ve been to Poland and France with the men but I played Leinster League for years – it’s the one thing I miss, getting old, is not playing anymore. We switched to being a major supporter. This is a trip of a lifetime. To be here at the first time, it’s special,” adds Liz.
And, ever the football fanatic, Aine lets it be known they “also have tickets to the France Brazil game so we can enjoy the atmosphere without the heart attack at the end of it”.
Yesterday, they did a practice trip to the stadium and ‘got goosebumps’ when it coincided with a runthrough of the national anthems and they heard Amhrán na bhFiann being pumped out of the tannoy.
The atmosphere at the game tomorrow is something fan Aisling Hyland from Athy, county Kildare, thinks will launch a higher pitched football fever back in Ireland.
“I think it’ll be the first time there will have been a big buzz about women’s sport in Ireland. I know at home, it’s still not really being picked up yet, but it will this week when they see how many Irish are out there.”
Her partner Liz Hyland, from Suncroft in Kildare, has been practising what she preaches – bringing her two teenage daughters to the matches in Tallaght.
“We are the generation who are bringing girls more into sport,” she explains. “We are pushing more into it. We had the 2020 campaign and it’s given the visibility to it and brought attention to it. At the France game, there were men there with their sons.”
Aisling adds: “There are guys going around with [Denise] O’Sullivan on their back – that’s class.”
Jim Ryan doesn’t quite have O’Sullivan’s name on his back but his football fan credentials are rock solid.
A Cork man, he has been at every major tournament that Irish football teams have qualified for – from the Euros in Stuttgart 88 to Sydney 2023. He’s also thrown a few other sports into the event mix, including the cricket and hockey world cups.
If there’s an Irish team needs supporting, he’s there with his friends and his flag.
Echoing sentiments from Liz, Aine and Pauline, Ryan also has tickets for the last-16 matches for himself and his three travel companions, Mairead O’Callaghan, John James and Eileen Martin (a lone Kerry woman amongst Rebels).
Invoking good vibes, Ryan tells The Journal, “I was here in 2000 for Sonia getting her medal so I’m looking forward to going back to the stadium.”
Laughing at the number of tournament anecdotes, Mairead notes: “We’re only in the ha’penny league compared to him.”
Roisin McHugh and Jen Breen – of Galway and Kerry (‘so more traditionally a GAA supporter of course’) – could give him competition for a record number of events some day.
“We had actually planned to come to the World Cup before Ireland had even qualified,” says Róisín, who lived in Australia for eight years and is reuniting with her brother during the tournament.
“Then Ireland qualified and we thought, ‘This is going to be the best trip ever’.
“So I made my little spreadsheet when the draw was announced and we got a ticket to every single permutation of a match that Ireland could be in, all the way to the final.
The couple has been following the women’s national team for about four years, and their hope is derived from Ireland’s 3-2 win over the Matildas in Tallaght two years ago.
“When I left, the Matildas were big. They were getting to World Cups, and Olympics, and we’d get up early doors in Australia to watch them around the world. So when I got back, I wanted to support Ireland,” explains Roisin.
“When Australia came to Tallaght, we were there. We met Sam Kerr. We beat them. We have hope,” Jen adds – wonderfully succinct commentary.
The Mercantile near Sydney Harbour has been the meeting point for Irish fans so far this week in the city.
A family-of-five caught my eye on my scavenger hunt for fans. “Irish people who have emigrated and settled here,” I thought.
But no. Football-mad Aisling Keane, and her two little sisters, are in Australia as she was dogged in her drawdown of a promise from her parents.
“We were watching the qualifying matches… and during one of them my husband said to my eldest daughter, ‘If they qualify, we’ll totally go see them in the World Cup’,” explains Aisling’s mother, Sinéad Keane.
“And then we saw Amber Barrett’s goal against Scotland, and when the final whistle went, she turned around and went, ‘Dad, when are we going?’”
“It was an expensive promise,” continues Paul.
Despite Sinead and Paul both having GAA backgrounds, the three children are football mad.
Aisling, who is involved with the FAI’s emerging talent programme in Dublin, particularly.
“People think we push her into it but we don’t, just once she has a ball she’s happy,” says Sinead.
“She is like, ‘When I’m playing for Ireland, ‘When I’m in my World Cup’… it’s happening. There is no doubt in her mind… which is really, really good. We don’t want to stamp on anyone’s dreams. It’s when, not if.”
The mother realises this is a new phenomenon.
“It means something. Girls didn’t have it until recently. The boys would have always had those expectations – ‘I’m going to be a footballer’ and nobody would have batted an eyelid.”
Paul picks up the theme: “This is a great opportunity for the FAI to see the potential in Ireland. We’ve been watching the underage teams, and there are unbelievably skillful girls out there. They just need the same level of coaching that is available to the boys – and we’ll be able to match the USA, Australia, anybody in the world.”
And Sinéad again: “We went to the first women’s league game that was televised and she was like, ‘Why is this the first game that is on TV?’ We didn’t have a good answer for her.”
The pair’s passion for the game – and their daughters’ happiness – is obvious as they riff off each other on the importance of girls’ participation.
“When Aisling comes home from school, she goes out practising. She watches clips on YouTube of skills and she tries to emulate those,” says Sinead.
“We know how important sport is to her life… so to have the opportunity to walk out in a stadium to see 80,000 people watching two female teams. I mean, that is a dream come true for her,” adds Paul.
“And it’s only the beginning. You can see the change in her from watching clips of male footballers to getting to watch more clips of the female footballers because there are much more of them and they are much more visible” – Sinead again.
“She knows their names, she can see them more on TV, they are much more publicised. It’s easier to now see the female role models that it used to be.”
How is she feeling about Thursday?
Paul: “It’s a dream come true for her.”
Sinead: “Like, she is overwhelmed excited.”
Paul: “Tears.”
Sinead: “We can’t believe we’re here, and she just thinks it’s amazing.”
To quote another woman of the moment Taylor Swift, and forgive our language, but ‘that’s a real f**king legacy to leave’.
Australia v Ireland kicks off at 11am Irish time. Sinéad O’Carroll and Emma Duffy are in Sydney reporting for The Journal and The 42. Subscribe to The 42 here.
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