New women's soccer team in Mayo ready to go

FRIDAY evening last on the northern end of Achill Island and Achill Rovers’ home ground, Fr O’Brien Park in The Valley, is a hive of activity.

Underage teams go through their paces on the training field under the warm April sun as Slievemore stands sentinel over them. 

Beside the main pitch there is a palpable sense of excitement one week out from a historic moment for the game on the island. 

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Soccer has a long and proud tradition in Achill dating back to the Dooniver Swifts who lined out in the early years of the Mayo League in the 1950s on to Achill Eagles and Achill United who joined forces in 1986 to see the creation of Achill Rovers. 

But in all of the storied history of soccer on the island, never has there been an adult women’s team. That will change this Friday evening in Crossmolina when Achill Rovers line out in the Mayo Women’s League for the very first time. 

One person who can encapsulate the progression is Marie Gallagher, a trailblazer in the 1990s and one of the four-person management team.

Marie represented Ireland at senior level on 16 occasions from 1990-1995, scoring six goals and was nominated for the Opel Player of the Year in 1995, but for most of her upbringing, playing competitive soccer or Gaelic football was a pipe dream. 

She grew up in a sports-mad house in Dookinella with her father Michael ‘Coleman’ Gallagher a renowned and passionate GAA man. 

She had played in the local Corn Acla (under 14) GAA tournament but while her brothers, Michael Darren, Ciarán and Shane got to further their considerable sporting talents in Gaelic football and soccer, it was mostly just backyard games that Marie had to make do with.

It was only when she went to third level in Waterford that doors started to really open for Marie and her lack of competitive experience did not hinder a meteoric rise to the Irish senior team. 

Along her travels, she also won an All-Ireland Junior Ladies Gaelic championship with Clare but playing Gaelic football or soccer for Achill was just an impossibility at the time. 

“I’d love to be playing now, there’s more opportunities, you see plenty of Irish players getting to play with the likes of Liverpool. It was such a different time,” Marie told The Mayo News. 

But she is passing on her wealth of experience to the next generation as part of a very strong management team. 

Lorraine McHugh has been diligently involved with underage down the years and is one of the driving forces behind the establishment of the women’s team, while there is incredible experience in the form of Paddy Francis (PF) Gallagher and Patrick (Pee) English. 

PF was manager of the Achill Rovers team that famously won the Mayo Premier Division title in 1998, arguably the club’s finest hour, while both himself and Pee have been heavily involved in the game locally for over 40 years. 

“I only came to give a fella a hand in 1982. He left and I’m still here,” chuckled Pee English. 

They’ve players from different age groups from experienced members of the Achill Ladies Gaelic football team, players in their early 20s who would have last played before Covid to players in their teens coming out of the club’s underage setup.

They are among three clubs entering a women’s team for the first time, along with Fahy Rovers and Glenhest Rovers.

Some girls have never played but the enthusiasm their coaches have observed has been refreshing and while they do not have lofty ambitions for their first year, establishing the women’s team for future generations is a huge step in of itself for the game in Achill. 

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