But now, more so than ever, amidst a relegation battle.
Louise Quinn is one of a seven-strong Irish contingent at Women’s Super League [WSL] strugglers Birmingham City, whose last two weekends alone sum up their season.
On Sunday 9 January, the side rooted to the bottom of the table stunned those at the top; the Blues enjoying a 2-0 win over Arsenal, their first of the campaign, bringing their tally to four points. Six days later, they were on the receiving end of a 5-0 reversal to Manchester United.
“It’s been very, very up and down,” as Quinn, who captains the side, put it at the launch of the 2022 SPAR FAI Primary School 5s Programme yesterday.
In a fairly intense meeting earlier in the week, in which they picked the United defeat apart, Dubliner Eleanor Ryan-Doyle provided a welcome moment of comic relief.
“She said something and I think the only people that understood her were me, Jamie Finn and Emily Whelan. She just read a sentence and everyone was like, ‘Wha’? Excuse me?’ And I was just like, ‘I know exactly what you’re saying Ellie, don’t mind them!’”
The accents, the craic, the support of international team-mates and strength in numbers on the training pitch; it all helps.
Quinn lives with her namesake, Lucy Quinn — who she only got to know recently, though is now in her life “every single day” with club and country — and Harriet Scott, and laughs that she’s trying to call it a Gaeltacht house.
Both English-born but fully-fledged Irish internationals, it certainly causes some confusion.
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“They don’t have a clue what it is but I’m like, we live in the Gaeltacht, just deal with it,” Quinn grins. “It is a lovely dynamic and, and it’s nice to just be there for each other as well when it’s needed.
“It’s just brilliant to see that the girls want to better themselves and want to have a go at international football as well. The younger girls are like sponges, soaking it up.”
Veteran defender Quinn is too. Always learning, always striving to improve on and off the pitch, the well-travelled Wicklow woman has enjoyed a colourful career to date.
Having played with Peamount United and UCD Waves in the Women’s National League [WNL], she made the move to Sweden in 2013. There, she enjoyed three seasons with Eskilstuna United, scoring 13 times in 90 solid appearances. She then took the opportunity to play closer to home at Notts County, but less than three months after her arrival, the club folded.
A successful, trophy-laden three-year stint at Arsenal followed, before a challenging season at Italian outfit Fiorentina, and now shes’s in the thick of her first-ever relegation scrap with Birmingham.
“I’ve done it all now: liquidated clubs, winning leagues, winning cups, relegation,” she says with a slightly nervous laugh. But it’s all fact. “Yeah, it’s all there. CV’s full!
“I’m learning to adapt to it, and it’s definitely something, but I really am just kind of like taking each week as it comes and and making sure that I’m feeling right to it. And I feel like I have been performing quite well this season.
“Obviously some of the games kind of suit me to be honest because, obviously, we’re more defensive so I get to try bring out my best qualities in the team. But that’s the thing, I think if you were talking to an attacker on the team, it would be a very different story. They’ve completely different scenarios on the ball and have to be absolutely clinical with with every single [chance] that we get.
“I’m still learning as I go. It’s still a completely different job altogether but I am still, weirdly, just enjoying my football and the challenge. But it hurts how we’re bottom with the table at the moment.”
Quinn and David Meyler at the 2022 SPAR FAI Primary School 5s Programme was launch, with Erin McLoughlin and Lily Mead, both age 12, Ladyswell National School, Dublin. Stephen McCarthy / SPORTSFILE
Stephen McCarthy / SPORTSFILE / SPORTSFILE
The “high” felt against Arsenal certainly brought a bit of reprieve from the basement battle, which appears to have turned into a two-way dogfight with Leicester City, who sit two points ahead on six. (Aston Villa and Everton, home to Irish internationals Ruesha Littlejohn and Courtney Brosnan respectively, are a few points adrift on 10 and 11.)
That the Gunners is the former club of Quinn added more weight to the sensational win.
“That just explains why you play football; for the complete underdog, you know, bottom of the table to come and and take points off the top team. They say to never celebrate against your old team but I couldn’t help it. I was celebrating the three points really because we desperately needed them and we deserved them.
“It’s been something that we’ve been talking about and something that you do notice a lot. We’ve shown the ability, but the consistency in how we play and how players perform, is really important. To then play how we did against United. We did really in-depth analysis on it yesterday and got a bit of a roasting from it. Just to see how we were doing things, and at the quality we were doing them, it really was up there, probably, with one of our poorest games, which is crazy.
“But maybe it was that it was such a big high that people maybe felt the pressure to play the exact same way that we did against Arsenal, when realistically it’s not gonna happen. We were all nine out of tens or tens out of tens and and we caught Arsenal on a bad day. But we need to start getting to a good solid seven out of ten instead of dropping way down to four and five out of ten, you know?
“For me, it’s just about trying to get that strong mentality into the team. The coaches are doing that and obviously that’s why they gave us a bit of a roasting yesterday, which was absolutely deserved because they’ve coached us and they’ve taught us these things, and we just weren’t switched onto it enough. But it’s still where we’re going forward and how we’re actually playing and how we’re set up, it will work. There’s still a good few teams there that we can take points from.”
Leicester’s 1-0 win over Brighton & Hover Albion compounded the heavy United loss, but it also provided a blueprint for the massive few weeks ahead as Quinn and her side look to stop the drop.
“There’s always a hell of a lot more fight from teams towards the bottom,” the 31-year-old concludes. “And then teams that are around mid-table that are safe kind of maybe they become a little bit complacent. So as Leicester did, the teams around us, we plan on really going for them.
“And we know it is possible to take points from the top teams. It won’t be expected, but we know it is possible. We’ve got to concentrate on what’s going on with some of the teams around us and just kind of go for it and enjoy the fight, you know what I mean?
“I feel like we can’t really play with pressure because, you know, we’re bottom of the table, so what have you got to lose? I’ve kind of found it through the years that the less pressure I play with, the better I play, to be honest. That’s something that you just learn.
“You have to experience it and all of that stuff. But it’s just trying to get mindset right.”
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'I’ve done it all now: liquidated clubs, winning leagues and cups, relegation. CV's full!'
THE TASTE OF home is always welcome.
But now, more so than ever, amidst a relegation battle.
Louise Quinn is one of a seven-strong Irish contingent at Women’s Super League [WSL] strugglers Birmingham City, whose last two weekends alone sum up their season.
On Sunday 9 January, the side rooted to the bottom of the table stunned those at the top; the Blues enjoying a 2-0 win over Arsenal, their first of the campaign, bringing their tally to four points. Six days later, they were on the receiving end of a 5-0 reversal to Manchester United.
“It’s been very, very up and down,” as Quinn, who captains the side, put it at the launch of the 2022 SPAR FAI Primary School 5s Programme yesterday.
In a fairly intense meeting earlier in the week, in which they picked the United defeat apart, Dubliner Eleanor Ryan-Doyle provided a welcome moment of comic relief.
“She said something and I think the only people that understood her were me, Jamie Finn and Emily Whelan. She just read a sentence and everyone was like, ‘Wha’? Excuse me?’ And I was just like, ‘I know exactly what you’re saying Ellie, don’t mind them!’”
The accents, the craic, the support of international team-mates and strength in numbers on the training pitch; it all helps.
Quinn lives with her namesake, Lucy Quinn — who she only got to know recently, though is now in her life “every single day” with club and country — and Harriet Scott, and laughs that she’s trying to call it a Gaeltacht house.
Both English-born but fully-fledged Irish internationals, it certainly causes some confusion.
“They don’t have a clue what it is but I’m like, we live in the Gaeltacht, just deal with it,” Quinn grins. “It is a lovely dynamic and, and it’s nice to just be there for each other as well when it’s needed.
“It’s just brilliant to see that the girls want to better themselves and want to have a go at international football as well. The younger girls are like sponges, soaking it up.”
Veteran defender Quinn is too. Always learning, always striving to improve on and off the pitch, the well-travelled Wicklow woman has enjoyed a colourful career to date.
Having played with Peamount United and UCD Waves in the Women’s National League [WNL], she made the move to Sweden in 2013. There, she enjoyed three seasons with Eskilstuna United, scoring 13 times in 90 solid appearances. She then took the opportunity to play closer to home at Notts County, but less than three months after her arrival, the club folded.
A successful, trophy-laden three-year stint at Arsenal followed, before a challenging season at Italian outfit Fiorentina, and now shes’s in the thick of her first-ever relegation scrap with Birmingham.
“I’ve done it all now: liquidated clubs, winning leagues, winning cups, relegation,” she says with a slightly nervous laugh. But it’s all fact. “Yeah, it’s all there. CV’s full!
“I’m learning to adapt to it, and it’s definitely something, but I really am just kind of like taking each week as it comes and and making sure that I’m feeling right to it. And I feel like I have been performing quite well this season.
“Obviously some of the games kind of suit me to be honest because, obviously, we’re more defensive so I get to try bring out my best qualities in the team. But that’s the thing, I think if you were talking to an attacker on the team, it would be a very different story. They’ve completely different scenarios on the ball and have to be absolutely clinical with with every single [chance] that we get.
“I’m still learning as I go. It’s still a completely different job altogether but I am still, weirdly, just enjoying my football and the challenge. But it hurts how we’re bottom with the table at the moment.”
The “high” felt against Arsenal certainly brought a bit of reprieve from the basement battle, which appears to have turned into a two-way dogfight with Leicester City, who sit two points ahead on six. (Aston Villa and Everton, home to Irish internationals Ruesha Littlejohn and Courtney Brosnan respectively, are a few points adrift on 10 and 11.)
That the Gunners is the former club of Quinn added more weight to the sensational win.
“That just explains why you play football; for the complete underdog, you know, bottom of the table to come and and take points off the top team. They say to never celebrate against your old team but I couldn’t help it. I was celebrating the three points really because we desperately needed them and we deserved them.
“It’s been something that we’ve been talking about and something that you do notice a lot. We’ve shown the ability, but the consistency in how we play and how players perform, is really important. To then play how we did against United. We did really in-depth analysis on it yesterday and got a bit of a roasting from it. Just to see how we were doing things, and at the quality we were doing them, it really was up there, probably, with one of our poorest games, which is crazy.
“But maybe it was that it was such a big high that people maybe felt the pressure to play the exact same way that we did against Arsenal, when realistically it’s not gonna happen. We were all nine out of tens or tens out of tens and and we caught Arsenal on a bad day. But we need to start getting to a good solid seven out of ten instead of dropping way down to four and five out of ten, you know?
“For me, it’s just about trying to get that strong mentality into the team. The coaches are doing that and obviously that’s why they gave us a bit of a roasting yesterday, which was absolutely deserved because they’ve coached us and they’ve taught us these things, and we just weren’t switched onto it enough. But it’s still where we’re going forward and how we’re actually playing and how we’re set up, it will work. There’s still a good few teams there that we can take points from.”
Leicester’s 1-0 win over Brighton & Hover Albion compounded the heavy United loss, but it also provided a blueprint for the massive few weeks ahead as Quinn and her side look to stop the drop.
“There’s always a hell of a lot more fight from teams towards the bottom,” the 31-year-old concludes. “And then teams that are around mid-table that are safe kind of maybe they become a little bit complacent. So as Leicester did, the teams around us, we plan on really going for them.
“And we know it is possible to take points from the top teams. It won’t be expected, but we know it is possible. We’ve got to concentrate on what’s going on with some of the teams around us and just kind of go for it and enjoy the fight, you know what I mean?
“I feel like we can’t really play with pressure because, you know, we’re bottom of the table, so what have you got to lose? I’ve kind of found it through the years that the less pressure I play with, the better I play, to be honest. That’s something that you just learn.
“You have to experience it and all of that stuff. But it’s just trying to get mindset right.”
Ireland could be boosted by ‘special and unique’ Campbell as World Cup bid hits new heights – Quinn
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Birmingham irish blues Louise Quinn The mighty quinn