ROSE REILLY

WORLD CUP WINNER

Ayrshire-born Rose Reilly played football before the women’s game was fashionable. After moving to Italy to play for AC Milan, she was picked for the Italian national team and is the only Scottish footballer to have won the World Cup. “I nearly got burned at the stake,” she said in 1984 of the reaction in 1950s Ayrshire on discovering a girl who would not substitute a ball with a doll or a football strip for a blouse. “I remember as a kid I had this Stanley Matthews book and I would follow every instruction in it. “I used to tell my mum that I had to have steak, too. She would just reply that I would have mince and tatties once a week and get on with it. “I am so proud there is a (women’s) league in Scotland and of the success of the national team. That is great. “It is a big, beautiful, blossoming tree but there are no strong roots. If a tree has not got roots it can wither. Get them young, get them interested and take it from there.”