Birmingham’s girls in green: ‘The most important thing is that we believe in ourselves as a squad’

A typical day for the Irish players at Birmingham City does not usually include snow and fire, but on the day The Irish Times visited in March training is first delayed then moved to a different pitch because of heavy snowfall. To compound matters, the training centre is out of use due to a recent electrical fire, meaning we are in the nearby clubhouse, where drilling works are ongoing.

Captain Louise Quinn, a Wicklow native, Jamie Finn of Swords, Harriet Scott, Irish-qualified through three Irish grandparents, and Lucy Quinn, Irish-qualified through her Sligo-born father, have accumulated almost 300 caps between them for Birmingham, who were relegated from the top-tier Women’s Super League (WSL) to the Championship in May 2022 for the first time in the club’s history.

A normal day begins at 9am with analysis. On Wednesday, it’s of the opposition, going through their shape and form, and then it’s activation in the dome. Then it’s pretty much straight out on to the pitch for between 90 minutes and two hours.

Lucy Quinn: Sometimes what you’ll see a lot of is everyone’s day looks a bit different. We might be in for a meeting with the manager or coaching staff, go through different clips of what they wanna see from you or what you did [at] the weekend, if you’ve got any questions. Some of the vets [veterans] might be in with the doctor and then three or four o’clock is normally prime nap time. That’s go home, recover, put the Normatec [compression] boots on, get some dinner, probably go back to sleep. It’s a shorter day, but they’re asking for your input to be a lot on the pitch and in the gym, then getting home to get your recovery.

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For Scott, afternoons are different, balancing her studies as a medical student.

Harriet Scott: So it changes week by week, day by day: we do training, gym and everything together, then have lunch and then I might have to head off because I’ve got a Teams call or a uni session, which might be catching up on things. Or it might actually be meetings or appointments or sometimes it’s heading off to get to a placement, to the hospital, which is about an hour away from here, and then start an evening or a night shift or getting ready for the next day.

Lucy Quinn (laughs): She’s being a little bit humble there as well. Sometimes it’s saving lives. It’s going from training [to placement] whilst I nap. And making a difference really.

While game days vary in terms of time and location, there are certain sureties that the players rely on.

Harriet Scott: (laughs): I would like to tell you what Lou’s [pre-match] routine is. It’s my favourite thing and you can watch it every single time, every match, for club or country. She does the same routine and it brings me joy when I see it.

So she’ll get there and put her stuff down, get on to the pitch, and she looks at the grass and goes, ‘okay’, politely talks to people for two seconds and then – she’s always got her Beats speakers on – and basically puts ‘em on her head, zones out and then stands in the middle of the pitch. She walks down the 18-yard box, looks at the net that she’s gonna head the ball in. She goes, ‘yep, there’s two posts and the crossbar.’ And then she turns around and surveys what she’s gonna defend for the entire game.

Louise Quinn: Sometimes I know you’re looking at me doing it. Haz is doing like David Attenborough narrating.

Harriet Scott: I am a very laissez-faire person. I wake up when I naturally wake up.

Lucy Quinn: It stresses me out.

Harriet Scott: Lucy and I are ...

Lucy Quinn: Completely just different.

Harriet Scott: I’ll wake up ...

Lucy Quinn: 10 minutes before we have to leave!

Harriet Scott: Eat some ...

Lucy Quinn: Cereal out of a mug,

Harriet Scott: Throw ...

Lucy Quinn: On her tracksuit and then go and have the game of her life! She’ll have a piece of toast in mouth, a bowl of cereal in hand. She’s playing the guitar, she’s got her football, thinking about what she’s gonna do in that game. And then she goes out and does it!

Harriet Scott: I feel like I do better when I don’t think about things too much. I’m very relaxed in the morning.

Jamie Finn: I’m the same, I dunno, I like to be early for matches. I always wear a pink wrap [hairband].

Being a women’s footballer, whether in the Championship or playing for your local club, means acknowledging the progress made, having gratitude for where you are and dreaming big for what’s to come. Being professional requires not only a sacrifice in time spent with friends and family, but there can also be a financial cost. The opportunity to go professional, despite the sacrifices, is something that isn’t taken for granted.

Louise Quinn: I think it [pay] could definitely be improved. But even in terms of the support you get outside of the salary, other benefits. Usually a lot of clubs can help with housing and lots of things. That can be sometimes across the board in the Championship as well, there also needs to be a duty of care in some ways as well, to really help the players and obviously in terms of the medical side of things, the expenses that go with it. That’s something as well that does or doesn’t happen in a lot of clubs.

I had friends that were unbelievable footballers but they were a few years older than me and just completely missed out on the opportunity of ever being a professional footballer

Harriet Scott: When I first joined the club there was club accommodation, but they decided that they would pay less but then support you with that. It changed to being paid slightly more, but you wouldn’t be provided accommodation.

Lucy Quinn: Well, that’s the thing, obviously in 10 years’ time the girls are gonna be a lot better off than I am. But I had friends that were unbelievable footballers but they were a few years older than me and just completely missed out on the opportunity of ever being a professional footballer. That’s probably what keeps me sane, just how grateful I am with my timing and my career. It happened late for me, but I had friends that were literally a year or two older who never had the opportunity that I had to play professional football. So yeah, you just have to be grateful for that.

Jamie Finn: There’s more doors opened now, like when I was with Shels, I only kind of remember Katie [McCabe] going to Arsenal, which is a few years ago now, do you know? Since then there has been a lot from Ireland, not just Shels, but from different clubs, going to Italy, Scotland, England. Like, people choose other countries and I think that’s more visible now than it was.

With the Championship finishing last weekend, and Blues coming second thanks to an unbeaten run in March and April, it’s clear that relegation gave Birmingham FC and the players a chance to regroup.

Harriet Scott: We had relegation and actually some clubs would be withdrawing support. But actually what’s happened is everybody’s still full-time. They’re looking to try to push on. So I guess in a way improve. Every year has been getting better [for facilities at the club]. We have more support and more access to things that we need. So, for example, this year we’ve had the best food that we’ve had the entire time that I’ve been at the club, new changing room, a consistent pitch. So it’s definitely better this year, with the changes that have been made.

Lucy Quinn: The squad that we have this year is actually bigger and obviously that’s down to budgets and investment. But one thing you’ll hear from every player would be about the gap in between the top WSL and Championship. Some people probably won’t be making enough to support themselves, some will have another job and then you’ve got this middle ground of people that are making a bit more and then the top, top end. It’s balancing it out and making it so that people can focus on football and it can be their full-time job.

That gap between the WSL and Championship is significant financially, but in terms of coverage and awareness, it is narrowing.

Jamie Finn: To be fair, it’s decent in Ireland. Like I’d have a lot of people talking about the Championship, they know all the teams and are obviously watching it if they can on the player and stuff. So that’s improved a lot.

Lucy Quinn: A lot of people were talking about it and even watching Katie play for Arsenal and that visibility of it, people are more aware of it now.

Jamie Finn: It’s easy for people to say, oh, Arsenal, Chelsea. But it is filtering to the Championship.

Louise Quinn: There’s a lot of Irish players in both leagues, which helps. There’s a lot of Irish people in Birmingham as well.

Lucy Quinn: A lot of them at the games too.

Louise Quinn: Like even that kind of community and obviously, maybe they don’t necessarily come to our games or into football, but then they may know a bit more about the Irish team then.

Jamie Finn: To be fair, we’ve had fans fly from Ireland.

Lucy Quinn: I don’t think that – other than family – happened last year. Whereas this year, you wake up sometimes and there’s a tweet saying like, ‘I’m coming over’.

Louise Quinn: Or a random Irish flag.

Lucy Quinn: It’s been unbelievable.

Harriet Scott: Even in away games as well.

With the World Cup fast approaching, personal preparation is well under way. The most recent games, against the US, saw both Quinns – Lucy being a late addition to the squad after Lily Agg’s injury – deliver player-of-the-match performances against the top-ranked team in the world.

Harriet Scott: We all have had individual conversations with coaches, management about things that you need to improve on. ‘Cause obviously although we’re in camp, it’s such a finite time, but actually when you’re away from camp with your club, there’s still stuff you can be focusing on to improve in doing that. Me personally, I’m trying to action the things that I’ve been told about, because it’s such a competitive time.

Jamie Finn: I think for me, it’s about consistency. Maybe change some things, but what works for me is being consistent in what I know I can do well and stuff. And obviously working on what you need to work on, but being consistent and believing in yourself.

Louise Quinn: Yeah, it’s that mix. As Jay was saying, it’s about being consistent. You don’t wanna change too much cause it’s obviously got us to where we are.

Lucy Quinn: The most important thing is that we believe in ourselves as a squad. Even since I joined, the standards of camps have been improving all the time because we’re all getting better as a team. We’re all excited for the challenge of the World Cup. It is gonna be a whole new step up. Even with the campaign in general, there was a lot of pressure put on us to win those games and to qualify. And you’ve seen everybody grow in a certain way and hopefully we’ll go away and get a big tournament experience and do what we are good at and we’ll be 10 times better players and people off the back of it. This is a large starting point for where the national team wants to be. I think we’ve seen everybody’s mentalities, everybody’s physical output, everybody wants to make that jump. We’ll continue to do that, hopefully.

While it’s unlikely there’ll be snow in Australia, it’ll be the resilience, determination and consistency of playing for the Blues that’ll enable Quinn, Finn, Scott and Quinn to hopefully be among the Girls in in July.