Incredible trailblazing soccer and ladies football double of Tipperary woman recalled

As the Ireland women’s soccer team plays its final international friendly game tomorrow evening (Thursday) before departing for the World Cup finals, the country’s first-ever Women’s National Team from 1973 will appropriately be recognised on the same night at Tallaght Stadium, Dublin.
Amongst those trailblazing pioneers of the then seminal sport in Ireland to be honoured will be one incredible Tipperary lady who has an unparalleled record not just in soccer but in Ladies Gaelic Football also.

Ardfinnan native and youngest of seven, Eleanor Carroll, was still in secondary school at the Convent in Cahir when she became part of the nation’s soccer history. On Sunday, May 13, 1973, she wrote her name, indelibly, into the annals of Irish sport when coming on as a sub, at just 16 years of age, in the 3-2 away victory over Wales at Llanelli.
Just a year later she would complete her remarkable and unique double, inconceivable in today’s sporting world, when she was part of the first-ever inter-county team to win the All-Ireland Ladies Senior Football Championship.

It was a meteoric rise to acclaim for the talented teenager who admitted “I honed my skills playing soccer for hours every Saturday afternoon with the boys on ‘The Green’ in Ardfinnan”.
“There was a women’s soccer team in Cahir Park at the time and some match or other was arranged against Ardfinnan, and from that a couple of our girls must have caught the eye of their manager. So I ended up starting my official soccer career, so to speak, with Cahir Park, and it went on from there.
“I can’t recall the details exactly, but I think around then, 1973/1974, Cahir Park were in the League of Ireland, so every Sunday we were off playing games all over the country. The international trials followed, mostly held in Kilkenny, and I went along and they picked me,” added Eleanor, a retired Physical Education teacher who taught for 30 years in the Central Technical Institute in Clonmel up to her retirement in 2010.

“My position in soccer was midfield or forward and I was the only one from Tipperary on the team that was mostly made up of players from Dublin and Kilkenny, with others from Limerick, Waterford, Galway, Donegal and Dundalk,” she said.
The win over Wales was followed in June by a 4-1 triumph over Northern Ireland but that was it, more or less, with soccer for Eleanor. Soon afterwards she was off to Limerick and third level training at the NCPE (Thomond) while the Cahir Park women’s team later disbanded.

CAHIR PARK HISTORY
Even if they didn’t realise it at the time, Eleanor, and her Cahir Park teammates, had also created sporting history. The very first competitive Women’s League of Ireland game was played on March 4, 1973, when Cahir Park defeated Galway side Elms United by 1-0 at West Park in Galway.
The joy of her significant, if somewhat short, soccer career was recently re-lived and enjoyed all over again when the Women’s National Team of 1973 were feted by the FAI at the Westin Hotel in Dublin, and later that same evening on the Late Late Show.

“That was a great day for us all. We might have been a little cagey about it, not having met each other in almost 50 years, but it turned out to be very enjoyable once we got over the initial nerves. The President of the FAI was there, the Mayor of Dublin was there, and we were all presented with a glass memento at the function. It was then off to the Late Late Show where we met Ryan Tubridy - and I even got a chance, off screen, to sit in his chair,” added a roguish Eleanor.

“But fair play to the organisers for that recognition, and they also invited us to attend the last two international friendlies before the World Cup in Australia. We’ll go along to the game against France in Tallaght Stadium, where we are to be guests of honour. We are also to be presented with a special international cap, inscribed with a 50th anniversary crest, and that’s nice because we never got a cap, or a jersey, or anything back then - I even remember having to buy my own tracksuit at the time,” she said.

DOUBLE ALL-IRELAND WINNER
But if Eleanor’s soccer career was more or less done and dusted in 1973, the following two years were also unbelievable when she helped the Tipperary Ladies Gaelic Footballers to win the first-ever All-Ireland senior title on October 13, 1974 (v Offaly in Durrow, 2-3 to 2-2, wearing jerseys sponsored by Barlows), and backing it up magnificently 12 months later when retaining the Brendan Martin Cup (v Galway in Athy, 1-4 to 0-0).

The brief report in The Nationalist the following week - imagine the coverage such an achievement would demand today - included:
“The game itself was a thriller from first whistle to last, and those present (approx 500) will remember this tough encounter between two outstanding teams. Offaly may say they were unlucky but on the run of the play the Tipp girls had that vital edge in speed and all-round fitness. Their scores came from Eleanor Carroll (1-2), Mary McGrath (1-0) and Lilian Gorey (0-1)”.

“Soccer might have been my favourite, but I soon fell in love with Gaelic football and No. 11 became my position on the team. Ladies football was strong in Ardfinnan after a club was formed there in 1969 and my journey into Gaelic football came from playing soccer with the boys,” added Eleanor.
The man credited with the introduction of ladies football in south Tipperary in 1969 was Dan O’Mahony from Bulmers, who organised a number of local teams to play for charity, including the Post Office, Showerings, the County Council and Schiessers.
Developing from that, a convention was held in Clonmel in 1971 and a decision was taken to hold a championship with five teams participating - Newcastle, St Luke’s, Powerstown, Ardfinnan and Killurney. Ardfinnan, managed by the late Jim Kennedy, defeated Powerstown in the inaugural final.
“Ardfinnan was well represented on those early Tipperary teams, with almost half the side coming from the club, including Kitty Ryan (Savage) who captained the 1974 team along with Biddy Kenrick, Geraldine and Tina Flynn, Susan O’Gorman and Margaret Carroll, who would captain the winning team in 1975,” declared the still proud ‘Village’ woman.
“There weren’t as many inter-county teams participating back then compared to today (eight entered the 1974 competition), and it was also a slow- starting process on the club scene. There were teams in Newcastle, Sliabh na mBan (Ballypatrick), Mullinahone, New Inn, Golden, Moycarkey/Borris; every year a new team seemed to spring up,” she added.

CIDONA AWARD WINNER
Eleanor saw her exploits in Ladies Gaelic football acknowledged with a Cidona (Annerville) Award for 1975, on the same night when greats like Sean Kelly (Cycling), Tadhg O’Connor (Hurling) and Eddie Webster (Gaelic Football) were also honoured by the Tipperary United Sports Panel.
While Eleanor made more than enough sporting memories of her own to last a lifetime, she was delighted to say that she was also present in person at yet another iconic day in Irish sporting history. While still at college in Limerick in 1978, and a colleague of then fellow PE student Tony Ward, she and a few of her classmates went along to witness Ward and Munster triumph over the mighty All Blacks. Before Ireland could ever manage that feat, Eleanor was one of the privileged 12,000 in attendance to witness fabled folklore written.

When her soccer and Gaelic football careers concluded, Eleanor also played squash at a high standard, representing the Tara Arms Squash Club in Clonmel, where she was ladies champion on numerous occasions. Now, however, golf is her game, and twice a week she hits the fairways of Cahir Park on Tuesdays and Thursdays. In between, each Wednesday morning, she’s to be found in Monroe with a fabulous group of retired women doing set dancing for craic, chat and a cuppa.

A lifelong Arsenal supporter, 66-year-old Eleanor is still living life to the full. True to form, she remains as competitive as ever and jokes that she is hoping that there is at least one more big golf trophy to come at Cahir Park Golf Club this year or soon thereafter.
Wife Sharon, her siblings, numerous nieces and nephews, and everyone in Ardfinnan and throughout the county can be hugely proud of her unique sporting achievements. Once more, 50 years on, we say a hugely deserved congratulations to Eleanor Carroll.