Our hockey heroines have triumphed on the world stage – sticking it to the old boys’ club mentality

TO most of us, the resounding defeat of our women’s hockey team at the hands of the Dutch is slightly superfluous. True, our ultra-competitive hockey team would not see it in those terms but it would be a shame if the bitter aftertaste of disappointment clouded the team’s epic achievement.

After mesmerising performances against India and Spain – where a series of heart-stopping penalty shootouts kept fans on the edge of their seats – a triumph yesterday would have just been the cherry on the proverbial cake.

For when this latest iteration of the Green Army ran onto the hockey pitch in London yesterday, they entered the history books as the first Irish sports side ever to play in a World Cup final.

Lustre

Whatever unfolded over the next 90 minutes or so, however many goals were scored by the conquering Dutch, they were still champions in our eyes and the names of Gillian Pinder, skipper Katie Mullan and the superb goalie Ayeisha McFerran, to name but a few, would reverberate for years to come with the magical lustre of sporting glory.

It is ironic indeed that for all the hype surrounding the World Cup and indeed the rugby test series against Australia this summer, it was a severely underfunded and uncelebrated sport like hockey – played by a team of amateurs against some of the world’s best professional sides – that had the most success on the world stage.

Few gave the team much of a chance when it headed off to the Women’s Hockey World Cup but they lifted the spirits of the nation in the same way the Irish cricket team did when it swept to unprecedented victory against a bewildered English side in India in 2011 and when boxer Katie Taylor brought home her Olympic gold.

After Gillian Pinder’s thrilling shot which clinched victory over Spain or Ayeisha’s unforgettable defence in goals, no-one can ever say again that women’s sport is not every bit as exhilarating as men’s, or that female athleticism is a poor relation to the supposed ‘real thing’. It’s different, yes, but as we know now, it has absolutely the same potential to entertain and to inspire us with spectacular feats of human skill, stamina and character that against the odds, can carry the underdog to victory.

Today or perhaps tomorrow the team will enjoy a joyful homecoming party, a marked contrast to their unceremonious departure last month.

The uphill struggle they faced finding sponsorship shows how women’s sport is still beset by discrimination, despite lip service to the contrary and various wellmeaning but often ultimately futile measures to support women in sports.

Almost at the 11th hour in what must go down as one of the most fortuitous sponsorship deals in history, SoftCo ponied up €20,000.

The sum is a miserable fraction of what the cream of Irish sports, such as the male rugby and GAA legends, trouser from various brands falling over themselves to bask in their reflected glory, but the Cinderellas of Irish sport have no eager suitors.

Up to two years ago when fundraising endeavours took over, the players funded their hockey programme out of their own resources.

Not only that, but these elite women athletes figured their prospects of making it to the finals were so low that they hadn’t even a hotel booked through for the weekend.

Support

Irish hockey does not have facilities like a dedicated pitch or training centre, and its popularity with girls falls behind GAA football, camogie, swimming and basketball. Most local hockey clubs receive pathetic subsidies and survive on voluntary fundraising efforts; cake sales, car boot sales, sponsored walks and so forth. What these plucky clubs lack in financial resources they make up for in their passion for the game and a dedicated mission to pass it on to the next generation.

It’s also true that while many Dublin schools play hockey, in large swathes of rural Ireland it is hardly played at all with consequently fewer leagues and opportunities to allow schoolgirl players improve.

The extraordinary achievement of the Irish women’s team will help the game to grow but significant support will have to be put in place to harness the inevitable surge of interest in hockey.

Just as more girls were inspired to fol- low boxing after Katie Taylor, our gallery of new hockey champions are brilliant role models for young women.

The image of Ayeisha McFerran padded out to look like the Michelin Man as she carries her team to glory helps counter the damage done to impressionable young girls by the scantily clad bimbos of reality TV and Instagram fame.

Image-obsessed celebrities like the Kardashians or the bronzed and pneumatic inhabitants of Love Island relentlessly hammer home the message to teenage girls that appearance is everything, inflaming their insecurities about their bodies and adding to peer pressure.

Influence

The so-called selfie generation’s obsession with grooming is one of the main reasons why one in every two girls between the ages of 11 and 13 drop out of sport completely, a far higher rate than for adolescent boys.

Another factor is the lack of women in sport. Research shows that even sportsmad young women often find it difficult to think of a sportswoman they admire, whereas the names of male sporting heroes trip off the tongue.

The Irish team’s victory will improve hockey’s status but that fades compared to its influence on girls and young women and its power to transform their casual interest in the game into a feeling of pride in the national team. For once, sporty girls and young women can look up and identify with a winning women’s side which is something that boys have always taken for granted.

The gender gap in sport in terms of State support and sponsorship is not just owing to old-fashioned prejudice – although that plays a part – but to myriad reasons.

Sponsors are attracted to mass audience events where they can flog their merchandise and have their brand on prominent display. Fixtures where the stands are half empty and the support is made up of family and friends, as is often the case with ladies’ matches, offer slim pickings to business indeed.

Yet how do we build up support for a game that is struggling as much to keep girls involved as it is to find funding? It’s a classic chicken-and-egg situation and there are no easy answers.

But one thing is for sure. And it’s that nothing has more power to provoke a sea-change in attitudes towards women’s sports, both in terms of public interest and female participation, than the style of victory we have seen by the Irish hockey team.

By their passion and self-belief, not to mention their remarkable skill and grace in defeat, this momentous Irish team have not just scored a triumph for hockey but for all women’s sport.