Northern Ireland Women’s Football Team – Matches
This is a list of matches played by the Northern Ireland women’s national football team.
The politics and history of male football dictated that Northern Ireland must field its own ‘national’ team, despite not being a country.
Other factors to do with religion meant that women’s football developed even more slowly here than in Britain and the rest of Ireland. For example, all Sunday football was banned in Northern Ireland until 2007.
A female “international side of some description” took on Scotland in 1974 and were casually drubbed 11–1. There were only four women’s club teams active in the Six Counties at that time.
On 7 September 1973 a Northern Ireland team lost 5–1 to England at Twerton Park in Bath, England’s first match under floodlights.
Ireland were not represented at the Pony Home International Championship, which was fought out by England, Scotland and Wales in May 1976.
The Northern Ireland Ladies Football Association began with a meeting in the Post Office Youth Club, College Square, Belfast, November 26, 1976, where Mary McVeigh was sworn in as the first Chair.
The first “official” NILFA-sanctioned match was played in 1977 against the Republic: a 6–0 defeat.
In July-August 1982 a “Northern Ireland All Star” X1 toured America, returning the favour of the “American Thunderbirds” who visited NI in 1980.
England great Gillian Coultard “had a bad game in Belfast once, when the place got to her, the atmosphere of the troubles” according to Pete Davies’ I lost my heart to the Belles (p. 270)
The game—England’s 4–0 win in May 1983—was played at Crusaders FC’s Seaview Ground on the notorious Shore Road in inner city Belfast. A couple of years previously an IRA gunman had shot dead a member of the RUC, Northern Ireland’s militarised security force, at the stadium gates.
Teams probably did not want to visit, due to the boneheads who, aided and abetted by the UK government, turned this beautiful part of the world into a notorious sectarian toilet.
There were exceptions, like Belgium who popped up to Ballymena after a game in Dublin in October 1980. Or the ever-neutral Swiss, who departed Belfast with a 2–0 win in June 1984.
Northern Ireland competed in the first two editions of UEFA’s ‘European Competition for Women’s Football’, in 1984 and 1987, but finished bottom of the qualifying group on both occasions.
Their coach in the first series was Tony Bell, who scored a famous Cup-winning goal for Cliftonville – Ireland’s oldest club – in 1979.
Bell’s sidekick was Paul Malone, another ‘face’ on the local soccer circuit, whose wife Evelyn was a prolific striker with MacDee Bluebirds and an experienced member of the national team panel.
Bell and Malone quit to focus on their Irish League exploits, leaving Eugene McGeehan to take the reins for the 1985–1987 cycle.
McGeehan seemed mildly surprised that England turned up for the home qualifier in May 1985. “Your courage in coming ensures a victory we can all share,” gushed his programme notes.
England’s manager Martin Reagan (ex-British Army) and striker/police officer Linda Curl, in particular, may have come under the Provisional IRA’s nutty concept of a ‘legitimate target’.
Fortunately the event passed under the Provos’ radar, as it did for all but the most dedicated women’s footy fan.
The 200 or so hardy souls who braved driving rain at Allen Park cheered a sumptuous free-kick goal from Post Office Dynamos’ Gillian Wilson, but the team had already shipped eight to their English foes.
For the 1989 tournament, UEFA’s Women’s Committee scrapped the regionalised British and Irish qualification groups. Instead Northern Ireland were drawn alongside England, Norway, Denmark and Finland, only to pull out due to a lack of financial backing.
Perhaps the top player in this era was Gill Wylie, a big centre-half who started out at Bangor-based Clucas Strikers. She graduated from Queen’s University in 1988 and joined Arsenal Ladies from Tottenham in 1991.
In I lost my heart to the Belles she reportedly informed Donny’s Karen Walker: “I’ll miss ye, mucker, so I will.”
Wylie backstopped Arsenal to a treble in 1992–93 but her knee was badly crocked at a preseason tourney in summer 1995.
She moved on to Croydon and kept piling up silverware. When the club moved to Charlton Athletic in 2000 and Debbie Bampton quit, Wylie briefly took over as gaffer.
Although the below list is incomplete, it’s clear that for much of the 1990s and the first half of the 2000s the Irish Football Association did not deign to put a team out.
This had the effect that some of the North’s better players decided to represent the Republic of Ireland. Striker Laura Hislop (nickname: “Shaka”) was one such player, who turned out for the Republic despite playing her club football for “Shankill Predators” whose moniker sounded like a loyalist murder gang!
It’s not known if these players were put under the same sort of pressure as their male counterparts like Darron Gibson and James McClean. Or if it helped provoke the Irish Football Association (IFA) into finally doing the bare minimum and resurrecting their own women’s team.
The IFA made a costly legal challenge to Northern-born male players turning out for the Republic, which eventually ended in total and humiliating defeat at the Court of Arbitration for Sport (CAS).
Alfie Wylie, coach of Linfield FC men and an IFA flunkey (Linfield has a traditionally cosy relationship with the governing body) was put in nominal charge of the rebooted women’s team who paid their own way to the 2004 Algarve Cup.
Soccer great Neil Lennon, whose own Northern Ireland career was ended by home crowd bigots, quietly chipped in with £250 towards goalie Christine Drain’s costs.14
At The Algarve Cup Northern Ireland were placed in Group C, a remedial group for developing women’s football outposts. They finished plum last.
But the event’s usual feeding frenzy of scouts saw several of the more able Irish players handed soccer scholarships to American Universities.
This list of matches finishes in 2005, when, as it were, normal service was resumed and the NI team started competing in competitive fixtures again.
Postscript: In November 2011 Northern Ireland suddenly threw off their long history of neglect and failure with an astonishing 3–1 home win over former European, World and Olympic Champions Norway.
Still things did not improve and Culture Minister Carál Ní Chuilín gave the IFA a stark wake-up call in April 2014: telling them their funding would be axed unless they stopped treating women’s football with utter contempt.
1970s
(Northern Ireland score is listed first)
1973:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 7 September | Twerton Park, Bath (A) | England | 1–5 | Friendly | Sharon Gillespie |
1974:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 30 June | (A) | Republic of Ireland | 1–4 | Friendly | 2 | |
| 23 November | Kilbowie Park, Clydebank (A) | Scotland | 1–11 | Friendly | Lorraine Carey | 1 |
1976:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| Butlin’s Holiday Park, Mosney (A) | Republic of Ireland | 1–3 | Friendly |
1977:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| ? | Newry (H) | Republic of Ireland | 1–5 | Friendly | ||
| ? | Dublin (A) | Republic of Ireland | 0–6 | Friendly | 3 | |
| 29 October | Inver Park, Larne (H) | Scotland | 1–4 | Friendly | Betty Proctor |
1978:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers |
| 13 May | Inver Park, Larne (H) | Republic of Ireland | 1–1 | Friendly | Lorraine Johnston (pen.) |
| 28 May | Warout Stadium, Glenrothes (A) | Scotland | 1–2 | Friendly | Evelyn Malone |
1979:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 24 February | Larne (H) | Scotland | 1–3 | Friendly | ||
| 3 June | Dixon Park, Ballyclare (H) | Scotland | 0–3 | Friendly | ||
| 18 July | Naples (A) | Italy | 1–4 or 0–4 | 1979 Euro | 4 | |
| 20 July | Naples (N) | Norway | 1–4 | 1979 Euro | ||
| 25 November | Cwmbran Stadium, Cwmbran (A) | Wales | 2–2 | Friendly |
1980s
1980:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 14 June | Showgrounds, Newry (H) | Republic of Ireland | 2–1 | Friendly | ||
| 31 August | Markets Field, Limerick (A) | Republic of Ireland | 0–0 | Friendly | ||
| 25 October | Showgrounds, Ballymena (H) | Belgium | 2–3 or 0–3 | Friendly | 5 |
1981:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| ? August | Inver Park, Larne (H) | Republic of Ireland | 2–1 | Friendly |
1982:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 4 September | Belfast (H) | Scotland | 1–2 | 1984 Euro qual. | Geraldine Smyth | 6 |
| 19 September | Gresty Road, Crewe (A) | England | 1–7 | 1984 Euro qual. | Gillian Totten | |
| 2 October | Newtownards (H) | Republic of Ireland | 1–2 | 1984 Euro qual. | Geraldine Smyth |
1983:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 17 April | Glasgow (A) | Scotland | 0–3 | 1984 Euro qual. | ||
| 14 May | Seaview, Belfast (H) | England | 0–4 | 1984 Euro qual. | ||
| 23 October | Dublin (A) | Republic of Ireland | 2–3 | 1984 Euro qual. |
1984:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 28 June | Ashley Park, Dunmurray (H) | Switzerland | 0–2 | Friendly |
1985:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 5 May | Glenmalure Park, Dublin (A) | Republic of Ireland | 0–1 | 1987 Euro qual. | ||
| 25 May | Allen Park, Antrim (H) | England | 1–8 | 1987 Euro qual. | Gillian Wilson | |
| 2 November | Allen Park, Antrim (H) | Republic of Ireland | 1–1 | Friendly | Fiona Glendinning | |
| 23 November | ‘Junior National Stadium’, Sydenham, Belfast (H) | Scotland | 1–9 | 1987 Euro qual. |
1986:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 16 March | Ewood Park, Blackburn (A) | England | 0–10 | 1987 Euro qual. | ||
| 20 April | United Park, Drogheda (A) | Republic of Ireland | ?–? | Friendly | ||
| 25 May | Boghead Park, Dumbarton (A) | Scotland | 0–7 | 1987 Euro qual. | ||
| 30 August | Belfast (H) | Republic of Ireland | 0–1 | 1987 Euro qual. |
1987:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 11 April | Elland Road, Leeds (A) | England | 0–6 | Friendly |
1988:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 26 November | Tolka Park, Dublin (A) | Republic of Ireland | 0–2 | Friendly |
1989:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 9 December | Clandeboye Park, Bangor (H) | Republic of Ireland | 0–1 | 1991 Euro qual. |
1990s
1990:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 21 April | Stair Park, Stranraer (A) | Scotland | 1–4 | Friendly | O’Neill | |
| 17 March or 19 March | Solitude, Belfast (H) | Netherlands | 0–6 | 1991 Euro qual. | 7 | |
| 22 September | Sportpark Eikendijk, Kaatsheuvel (A) | Netherlands | 0–9 | 1991 Euro qual. | ||
| 7 October | Dublin (A) | Republic of Ireland | 0–4 | 1991 Euro qual. |
1993:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 17 October | Ray MacSharry Park, Sligo (A) | Republic of Ireland | 0–2 | Friendly |
1994:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 29 October | Belfast (H) | Republic of Ireland | 0–1 | Friendly |
1995:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 3 September | United Park, Drogheda (A) | Republic of Ireland | 0–6 | Friendly |
1996:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| ? November | Banbridge (H) | Republic of Ireland | 0–5 | Friendly | 15 |
1997:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 6 June | Belfast (H) | Wales | 1–2 | Friendly |
1999:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 29 May | Lansdowne Road, Dublin (A) | Republic of Ireland | 1–1 | Friendly (20 mins each way) | Claire Rea | 16 |
| 19 July? | Coleraine (H) | Republic of Ireland | ?–? | Friendly | 14 |
2000s
2000:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 22 September | Carryduff (H) | Isle of Man | 6–0 or 7–0 | Celt Cup | 8 | |
| 23 September | Carryduff (H) | Republic of Ireland | 0–2 | Celt Cup | ||
| 29 November | David Keswick Centre, Dumfries (A) | Scotland | 0–9 | Friendly |
2004:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 14 March | Estádio de São Luís, Faro (A) | Portugal | 0–2 | Algarve Cup | ||
| 16 March | Estádio Municipal, Albufeira (N) | Greece | 0–2 | Algarve Cup | ||
| 18 March | Complexo Desportivo Arsénio Catuna, Guia (N) | Wales | 1–3 | Algarve Cup | Kimberley Turner | |
| 20 March | Hotel Montechoro Fields, Albufeira (N) | Greece | 0–2 | Algarve Cup | 9 |
2005:
| Date | Venue | Opponents | Score | Competition | Northern Ireland scorers | Notes |
| 9 March | Estádio Municipal, Paderne (N) | England | 0–4 | Algarve Cup | ||
| 11 March | Estádio de São Luís, Faro (N) | Mexico | 0–2 | Algarve Cup | ||
| 13 March | Estádio Municipal, Lagos (A) | Portugal | 2–1 | Algarve Cup | Stacey Hall, Ashley Hutton or Ashleen Kealey | 10 |
| 15 March | Hotel Montechoro Fields, Albufeira (N) | Portugal | 1–3 | Algarve Cup | Sarah McFadden | 11 |
| 31 July | McDiarmid Park, Perth (A) | Scotland | 1–2 | Friendly | Helen McKenna | |
| 29 October | Stadionul Mogosoaia, Mogosoaia (A) | Romania | 2–3 | 2007 World Cup qual. | Rachel Furness, Stacey Hall | 12 |
| 10 November | Showgrounds, Ballymena (H) | Slovakia | 2–1 | 2007 World Cup qual. | Lisa O’Neill, Rachel Furness | 13 |
Update 15 April 2015: Article amended with 1977 Republic of Ireland result (0–6) supplied by Mark Cruickshank of The Roon Ba forum (see comments).
Update 18 October 2015: Article amended with 1974 Scotland result (1–11) supplied by Neil Morrison of The Rec.Sport.Soccer Statistics Foundation (see comments).
1. Andy Mitchell’s The Scotland International Programme Guide (2008) suggested this match was staged in Clydebank, The England v NI match programme 19.9.82 suggested Larne.↩
2. Sue Lopez’s Women on the Ball (1997:153) said the Republic of Ireland’s first ever game was a 4–1 win over NI in 1973. Date and venue unknown. Ann Bourke’s Women’s Football in the Republic of Ireland: Past Events and Future Prospects in Hong and Mangan (2003) says the game was in 1974 and that the Republic won 4–0 before 100 spectators.↩
3. Sue Lopez’s Women on the Ball (1997:145) said NI’s first ever game was against the Republic in 1977. The NIWFA was formed in November 1976.↩
4. The Italian FA say Italy won 4–0. Erik Garin’s Inofficial European Women Championship 1979 webpage at RSSSF (2000) suggested Italy won 4–1.↩
5. The England v NI match programme 19.9.82 suggested NI lost 3–2. Belgian FA records indicate Belgium won 3–0 and that the match was staged in nearby Ahoghill.↩
6. First match in UEFA Competition.↩
7. FIFA records indicate 17 March (St. Patrick’s Day). Dutch FA records indicate 19 March.↩
8. Not a full FIFA international. First win? Erik Garin’s 1st Celt Cup – Women Tournament – 2000 webpage at RSSSF (2003) suggested 6–0. NIFG webpage suggests either 6–0 or 7–0.↩
9. An 11th place playoff: NI finished 12th of 12 teams in the annual Algarve Cup tournament.↩
10. Portuguese FA and the BBC credited the second goal to Hutton. RSSSF credited it to Kealey. First senior win according to Irish FA.↩
11. An 11th place playoff: NI again finished 12th of 12 teams in the annual Algarve Cup tournament.↩
12. First competitive fixture for over 15 years. First competitive goal for nearly 20 years.↩
13. First win in a competitive fixture.↩
14. Drain had herself declared for the Republic in 1999 after playing three times for NI. But she agreed to switch back when the Northern team started up again in 2004. A Daily Mirror article from August 1999 said the last of Drain’s three caps came in a friendly versus the Republic in a curtain raiser to that summer’s Milk Cup (an annual youth tournament in NI). She and another Northern-born Republic player Nadine McGrory moonlighted as a favour to the NIWFA who were struggling to put out a team.↩
15. A Daily Mirror article in October 1997 said Margaret Saurin scored on her senior Ireland debut against Northern Ireland 12 months previously.↩
16. A curtain raiser to the men’s ‘Peace International’ between the Irish teams, raising funds for the Omagh bombing.↩
My uncle Davey Atkinson took the side for the American tour in 82. My Auntie Irene also kept goals. Both now deceased by the way. Would love to hear more about them. Thanks.
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