Former Wales international Gloria O’Connell says it would be a proud moment for the country’s female football pioneers should Jess Fishlock and company complete a 50-year journey from “laughing stock” to Europe’s elite.
Wales meet Slovakia in Euro 2025 play-off semi-final action this week, with the winners facing Georgia or the Republic of Ireland for a finals place in Switzerland next summer.
Former captain Laura McAllister, now a UEFA vice-president, says reaching a major tournament would elevate women’s football in Wales to “stratospheric heights”.
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Wales is the only nation from the British Isles not to have played at a major tournament, and it has been suggested reaching Switzerland would have a similar impact to the Wales men’s team reaching Euro 2016.
Just over half a century ago women’s football in Wales, like the rest of the UK, was banned after the English Football Association declared the game “quite unsuitable for females”.
Although women representing their country took to the field in 1973, it would be another 20 years before the team was officially recognised by the Football Association of Wales.
“People used to laugh at us, we were considered a laughing stock,” said O’Connell, a goalscorer in that inaugural 3-2 defeat to the Republic of Ireland in May 1973.
“We paid our own way and got round on buses, minibuses and trains.
Former Wales captain Laura McAllister, now a UEFA vice-president, played an instrumental role in establishing a women’s national team in the early 1990s (Jonathan Brady/PA)
“We got our kit from a sports shop in Cardiff. They made it with the Three Feathers (the emblem of the Welsh Rugby Union) because I think they thought that was Wales.
“It was very heavy by the end of the game if it rained. It was a men’s kit and it just dragged on a lot of the girls.
“Nothing was said about FAW recognition. We didn’t fight for it because we were just happy to be playing football.”
How times have changed since Wales’ trailblazers were ‘paid’ in eggs and bath salts.
Two decades on from that first fixture in Llanelli, McAllister, Karen Jones and Michele Adams met then FAW secretary Alun Evans to grant recognition to women’s football in Wales.
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An official Wales team played their first fixture against Iceland in 1993, but successive 12-0 defeats to Germany during a maiden European Championship campaign pointed to the long journey ahead.
Bumps in the road included the FAW withdrawing the team from Euro 2005 qualifiers, citing the cost of travelling to Belarus, Kazakhstan, Estonia and Israel amid necessary cutbacks to support the men’s team.
However, greater investment and full-time managers followed, and in 2021 the FAW launched a strategy to drive growth in women’s and girls’ football across Wales.
The results have produced a 45 per cent rise in participation and swelling the player pool to 16,000, with a 254 per cent boost in investment due to support from stakeholders and partners.
Attendances at Wales fixtures have risen by nearly 200 per cent, and a five-figure crowd is expected for Tuesday’s play-off second leg with Slovakia at Cardiff City Stadium.
Record goalscorer Jess Fishlock plays in the United States and is the poster girl of women’s football in Wales (Nick Potts/PA)
Fishlock, the record caps holder, top scorer and poster girl of Welsh football, plays Stateside in the National Women’s Soccer League at Seattle Reign and has appeared in an advertisement for Adidas.
“I do wish I’d been born a lot later,” said O’Connell, recently among a group of women who played for Wales between 1973 and 1993 to receive an official cap from the FAW.
“I wouldn’t watch a Wales women’s game at first because I was envious. But I got over that and support them all the way now.
“It’s amazing to see what has happened to women’s football in Wales. I’d love to see them qualify for a major tournament.
“Everyone who played in those Wales teams years ago would feel so proud if they could achieve it.”