As the Euros kick off, we speak to the women’s football pioneer whose World Cup success made her a living legend
WORDS: MARIE PENMAN
When Rose Reilly was just three years old, she wandered away from her family home in Ayrshire, Scotland. She was later found by her frantic mum standing at the side of a local football pitch in a park, watching the local boys play a match.
It seemed to cast a spell on the little girl.
“From then on, I was hooked on the game,” Rose says.
“I didn’t know how or why – I just knew I wanted to play.”
As the Euros kick off in Germany, a year on from last summer’s celebrations after the English Lionesses reached the final of the FIFA Women’s World Cup, we go back a few decades to explore the story of this country’s most successful footballer.
Rose Reilly remains the only Scottish football player to have won a World Cup.
What makes her story even more unusual is that Rose won the trophy not for her native Scotland, but for Italy!
Leaving Scotland
By the time Rose was 17, she had been expelled from school (“For playing football – girls weren’t allowed in the boys’ playground”); sacked from her job in a carpet factory (“For playing football in my lunch break and just losing track of time”).
Her despairing parents had no idea what to do with her.
All Rose wanted to do was play football.
“Looking back, I feel sorry for my mum and dad. My brothers and sisters were all getting on with their lives, finding jobs and earning money, and all I did was kick a ball around.”
Unfortunately, women in Scotland were still banned from playing football under the auspices of the SFA, meaning there was no future for female players in Scotland. Then Rose read a story in the newspaper about women playing football in France.
“It made me see that there was a way I could be a footballer after all – just not in this country,” Rose says.
The women’s game back then was not taken seriously. Today’s players have sponsorship deals and training kits organised for them but Rose had neither money nor support.
However, with her friend, fellow player Edna Neillis, she went into the offices of the newspaper in Glasgow and asked to speak to the journalist who had written the story about the women’s game.
Impressed by their determination, and sensing a good story, the reporter convinced his editor to pay for flights to France for the girls, and set up a trial for them playing for French team Stade de Reims.
