I went up to the Aviva Stadium last week as The Lionesses were in town to face the Girls in Green for their Euro 2025 qualifier.
England are the reigning European Champions and the reigning Finalissima champions as well as being runners up in last year’s World Cup, so excitement levels were at a high coming into the game.
The thoughts of seeing big names such as Mary Earps, Alessia Russo, Chloe Kelly, Alex Greenwood, Lauren James, amongst others was a huge selling point for this game, so much so that it was moved from Tallaght to the Aviva Stadium.
For me as an Englishman there was no question on my part as to whether I would get tickets. The only disappointing thing, for me at least, and I’m sure for other people as well was the fact that tickets were being sold as part of a bundle with tickets for the Sweden game at the end of May. No offence to Sweden but they aren’t going to draw the same kind of traction that the Lionesses would, I don’t want to watch Sweden, I don’t know any players on the team, and this isn’t just a women’s football thing, even if it was the men’s team, I wouldn’t know many players.
The Lionesses, I know most of the players. It’s about exposure and what we get to see over here. The Women’s Super League is very accessible and is on Sky, the Women’s FA Cup is on BBC, we see a lot more of it in this country than we do Swedish football. They probably would have been better keeping that game in Tallaght and just having the England game in the Aviva.
Taking the England game out of Tallaght was smart, the official attendance was listed as 32, 742 so they outsold Tallaght almost three times. Surprisingly they didn’t break the record for the highest attendance at a women’s game in this country, that belonged to the Northern Ireland game last year with 35,944. Given the big names that play for England that’s a bit of a surprise but it’s still a very strong attendance. The atmosphere around was electric.
Harry Shorthose was part of the 32,174 crowd that saw Ireland take on England at the Aviva last week
Photo: ©INPHO/Ryan Byrne
I travelled up on the train mid-afternoon and got the Luas up to Connolly and then the Dart over to Landsdowne Road and was up there around 5.30pm. Closer to kick off time, there was a sea of green around the outside of the Aviva Stadium, there were lots of young girls especially in an Irish jersey or an Irish kit or even just a green hat. It was nice to see such support, especially from young girls, because they are the future of women’s football in this country and as the saying goes, if you can’t see it, you can’t be it, so it’s important for these young girls to see their heroes playing, and not just the Irish players either, but the English players that they see in the Super League too, especially with the Euros and the World Cup being shown on RTE and the success that England have had.
The atmosphere within the stadium was great. The English fans were mostly squeezed into one corner on the left hand side behind the goal that Ireland played into in the first half and provided most of the entertainment. The Irish supporters were in full voice too and backed their team to a tee. Whilst the result didn’t go Ireland’s way, anytime that Ireland went anyway close, the Irish supporters backed their team every time, urging them forward, pushing them on. When the stadium announcer was announcing the teams, Katie McCabe’s name was the one that got cheered the loudest, evidently she’s a fan favourite.
There was pressure on England to win the game having drawn 1-1 with Sweden in the first game so this was classed as a must win game. Surprisingly God Save the King went off without a hitch and there was no boos or anything during it. Even more surprising is the amount of people who don’t know the lyrics to Amhrán na BhFiann and there weren’t many singing along.
The first 20 minutes of the match were all England, they dominated and bossed the game and scored two goals, deservedly too. Some poor defending cost Ireland for the first goal. A cross field kick from the left was played into Lucy Bronze who hit it into the path of Lauren James who hit her effort past Courtney Brosnan. Alex Greenwood hit in a penalty to the left of Brosnan for the second goal after a handball from Ruesha Littlejohn. Louise Quinn later handled the ball again and Greenwood hit her penalty off the post much to the delight of the Irish crowd who cheered when she missed, having booed during both penalties.
England were in control for the majority of the game but never quite got out of second gear, never really produced any moments of magic. Fran Kirby went closest shortly after the hour mark after Alessia Russo headed a ball down into her from James’ cross but Brosnan saved well. Ireland came back into the game in the last 15-20 minutes with McCabe in particular causing problems for the English backline. Leanne Kiernan was also effective when she came on. Ultimately they couldn’t do much with Hannah Hampton in the goal having very little to do with not many shots on target. The three shots on target were all dealt with pretty well by the English defence meaning that Hampton didn’t have a whole lot to do.
The game was poignant for English fans for two big reasons. Leah Williamson returned from injury to captain England after a year out with injury and her walking out alongside her Arsenal teammate McCabe for the anthems was an emotional moment. It was also Rachel Daly’s last international match. The 32 year old Aston Villa star announced her retirement on Wednesday after the game. She played a big part in England’s World Cup campaign last year and won the Euros with England too. Mary Earps, the 2023 Sports Personality of the Year winner and FIFA Best Goalkeeper winner for the last two seasons was on the bench with Chelsea’s Hannah Hampton getting a shot to establish herself as the number 2.
While it was a great night and a great atmosphere, the replay screens were poor. There were no replays of the penalty incidents for people to see what had happened and if the decisions to award the penalties were fair which was a little frustrating. It was nice to get back to the Aviva Stadium, I hadn’t been since before Covid, and it had been even longer since I’d been in a non media capacity, so it was an enjoyable evening.
By Harry Shorthose
