For Laurie Ryan, her earliest soccer memory was lining out for the Lifford ladies in her native Ennis.
The numbers just weren’t there to field a full team so five-aside games became the norm. The highlight back then was playing in a primary school competition, her team enjoyed success in Clare and Munster and went on a run to the All-Ireland.
Unfortunately, back then, the girl’s game was unorganised as a movement and it was down to individuals like Laurie’s first coach, Damien Walsh, who shared his love of the game with these young girls in the region.
He helped light the fire in her belly. While an international women’s team existed, that dream wasn’t really on the table for most young girls like Laurie. The structures and a lack of clubs just didn’t support it, especially in a rural area in the west of Ireland.
By the time she had hit her teens, the realisation had kicked in, and the big decision was made to switch codes as Gaelic football came calling.
"The fact that there weren’t many soccer clubs in our local area meant that we were having to play at a lower level. It was very enjoyable, we had some success, but the competition level wasn’t where I wanted to compete at.
"The opportunities probably weren’t the same as they are now. When I was playing underage, you’d be playing matches, there was no League of Ireland for women, there was no academies, there was no end goal, a way to progress and play at a higher level. There was a limited view of where you could in soccer when I was young."
Soccer was always her first sport but by the time she hit her teenage years, she took a step back. Many of her friends turned to Gaelic football and it was a path which she followed too. By the time she was 16, she was playing for the Clare adult team, and a few years later, she was leading the team out in an All-Ireland final at Croke Park.
While her GAA career blossomed, Laurie qualified as a science teacher and in 2020 as Covid gripped the nation, she took up a job with the TUS in Athlone as an assistant lecturer in science. A friend from home suggested she return to her first love with a local team in her new home.
Given she had taken a year out from the Gaelic, it was something she was giving consideration to. Her friend Ashling Hughes had gone about setting up a trial with the local League of Ireland side Athlone Town.
Laurie went as far as ordering new boots, but the nerves had kicked in, and she’d talked herself out of it before the new footwear had even arrived. That was until her own sliding doors moment, a knock at the door one early morning, and the delivery of her new boots.
"The person at the door asked me if I was Laurie Ryan the footballer? I said maybe! He asked me if I would come training tonight with Athlone Town? I didn’t know what to say, so I said OK. He said great, I’m Tommy Hewitt the manager, I will see you there.
Tommy was the manager, but also the postman. It was a complete shock. And what made it worse was that he only happened to be on that route that day, he would never deliver post to us. You could say everything happens for a reason."
One moment of chance and later that evening, Laurie Ryan went back to her first love, eight years on from when she had given it all up. Within two years, she was living out her reimagined dream, captaining Athlone Town to the FAI Cup final which they would lose to Shelbourne last season. Her sporting career had come full circle.
"This is my third season now and I’ve really enjoyed it. The competition and the league itself is everything you would want as a young player. Even to see the girls that progress outside our league, in England and other places just shows the standard you have here.
"I probably didn’t have that when I was younger and it’s great that younger girls nowadays can see the academies and a pathway to getting to play in the big stadiums. That gives children something to look forward to, something which I was missing when I was that bit younger."
Women’s sport has come a very long way in such a short time. Laurie Ryan’s story is testimony to that. On Thursday, another glass ceiling will be smashed when the Republic of Ireland make their World Cup debut against the co-hosts Australia.
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