EVERY PLAYER WHO has represented the Ireland women’s team in a senior game is to get a commemorative cap from the FAI. 

The move is part of the 50-year anniversary celebrations of the Ireland Women’s National Team. 

Also, there is to be reunion of the first ever Ireland WNT, who beat Wales 3-2 on 13 May 13, 1973, and the first team to play a home game, where Ireland had a 4-1 win over Northern Ireland on 30 June 1973, in Dublin.
 
The players involved in both games will be invited to an event in early May and will also be guests in Tallaght Stadium on 6 July when Ireland team take on France in their send-off game before departing for the World Cup.

To launch the initiative, a photocall was held with five players who represented Ireland in different decades: Linda Gorman, Jackie McCarthy-O’Brien, Sue Hayden, Olivia O’Toole and Ellen Molloy.
 
“It is so important to show appreciation to those who went before us and helped to drive women’s football forward,” Ireland manager Vera Pauw said. 

“I’m grateful to the work that managers like Noel King, Sue Ronan and Colin Bell did before me and I know that our team acknowledges the impact that former players had on raising standards for them.

“We try to make time for the women who have helped to shape what women’s football is now in Ireland and it is brilliant to see people like Paula Gorham, Linda Gorman, Olivia O’Toole, Emma Byrne and many others at our games, at promotional events and continuing to be fantastic ambassadors for our team and women’s football as a whole.

“I am proud that I have been asked to help to take this next step in honouring these amazing women – we stand on their shoulders. I want to thank them for what they have done for the game during a time when they did not get the kind of visibility that they deserved.”

Any player who represented the Ireland WNT at senior level in an official game since 1973 can contact the FAI by emailing wnt@fai.