KICKING UP A FUSS

Tournament to get more girls into football is huge success

FOOTBALL legend Rose Reilly was on hand to present the trophy in an inaugural Glasgow girl’s tournament set up in her honour.

PE teacher Natalie Loughery has always been inspired by the story of Rose, who was banned from playing in Scotland but achieved incredible success in Italy.

So the St Roch’s Secondary teacher set up the Rose Reilly Cup to encourage other girls into the sport.

Teams from four high schools battled it out on the pitch in front of the female world footballer of the year. Natalie said: “This is someone I have always looked up to.

“It is so important to get women and girls active in sport so I thought the ideal thing would be to set up a tournament in honour of Rose Reilly.” Natalie is also a huge football fan and plays the sport every week with a group of friends.

They went to see the Rose Reilly stage play and met Rose... so Natalie took the chance to ask if the former professional player would get involved.

The event was timed to coincide with the fifth annual Scottish Women and Girls in Sport Week and sportscotland’s Active Girl Day initiative. More than half of teenage girls don’t play any sports and girls tend to drop out of sport at a far higher rate than boys.

Natalie said: “At St Roch’s we have some really strong girls’ teams, and we have an excellent extracurricular programme and a good sports leadership programme.

“We find it really affects girls’ confidence when they have to play against the boys so it’s great for the girls to get involved with something like this without the boys, it’s much better for their confidence.”

Four schools took part: St Roch’s as the host school, Lourdes Secondary, Bellahouston Academy and Duncanrig Secondary.

There were two teams from each school playing in an A section and a B section with a trophy available to both.

Natalie added: “Because of lockdown our teams haven’t been able to play for a good year and a half so it’s even more important that they are getting this opportunity.

“It’s not about the winning today, it is a pure celebration today about Rose

Reilly and women in sport and girls in the game of football.

“As long as they are having a good time, that’s what we want.”

In the 1970s when Rose played football, there was no way for women to turn professional – despite the fact she had incredible talent and played alongside the boys. The then-17year-old left Scotland to move to Italy and became a huge hit in the Serie A.

She was asked by the president to play for the Italian national team and went on to win the 1984 version of the Women’s World Cup. Natalie added: “I remember when I was young, reading about Rose and just being in awe and thinking that’s maybe something I could do, playing football in Italy.

“We want the girls to see a role model and think that sport and football are for them.”