Captain Niamh’s unexpected tournament
|Niamh Ryan (right) with teammate and friend Nicola Duffy. Image: Anita Milas
Niamh Ryan never actually expected to be at the Homeless World Cup. Nor did she expect to be the team’s captain. Prior to October last year, she had never played football. Prior to March of this year, she had never experienced homelessness.
‘So I actually started the football before I was even homeless,’ Ryan says. ‘I never expected to go to World Cup, because I never qualified [before].’
Ryan had initially been hesitant to join street soccer, given her newness with the game. ‘I found then that when I came down to football, it was nice because no one judged, and knew that everyone was the same situation, that we all had difficult backgrounds,’ Ryan says.
Ryan’s own background had seen her and her now-four-year-old daughter move to a women’s refuge for three months. She has now been in a safe house for almost a year. Street soccer was the steadying element when so much else was changing. ‘They actually made allowances for me when I was there because there was a curfew,’ Ryan says. ‘They were like, “No, you’re not missing a football. It’s so important for your mental health. We’ll figure it out. You can come home later the day that you have training.”’
It was, it turns out, invaluable. ‘The difference between when I first went in [to the refuge] to when I left was unbelievable. The confidence, everything.’ She laughs: ‘When you hear people being like, “Oh, football changed my life.” And you’re like, “Oh, relax.” But it actually does. It really, really does.’
It was through street soccer—and specifically her selection for the Homeless World Cup—that Ryan met goalkeeper and teammate Nicola Duffy. The two became firm friends. For Duffy, football is a form of respite and social inclusion. She helps care for her grandmother around her work and football commitments.
‘It’s great because you get to meet your friends. It’s an outlet. So if you’re at home and you don’t [get to see] many friends, and when you get to go to the football, you meet everyone, different stories, different backgrounds, and everyone’s just so lovable, and we all come together as a unit. So it’s great. I do a lot for my grandmother, helping out at home, so it gets me out and clears my head.’
Thanks to the tenacious work of the Irish team’s organisers, Duffy, Ryan, and their teammates are not only experiencing the Homeless World Cup, they’re also receiving official caps for representing their country. (Ireland is one of only a handful of Homeless World Cup teams that have secured the honour from their home professional football federations.) ‘It’s a simple gesture, but an important one,’ Irish street football CEO Chris O’Brien says.
The caps are awarded at an official ceremony that used to be held at the Irish football federation’s office. ‘The problem we have—it’s a good problem—is a lot of players want to show their families.’ That means more attendees than the room’s capacity and has prompted securing an alternative location.
‘We’re trying to make [the cap presentation] more family orientated, because I think their children should see what they what they’re doing, their mothers should see,’ O’Brien explains, that if you think about it, the only news some families would hear, and the only time they’d usually be contacted by official bodies, might be with some not-great news about their family member. ‘So when [the player can] say to their family, “I’m actually selected for Ireland to play an international tournament and am going to get a cap”, their parents are so proud.’
The players are incredibly proud too. Duffy says she’s going to frame her cap and her jersey inscribed with her name on the back and hang it on her wall. She and Ryan are also keen to recognise the contribution of the people who helped them achieve that cap. Coach Mary Byrne, too, would previously have been eligible to play for Ireland but relinquished her opportunity and stepped into the coach role to help others instead. ‘I told her she could have joint custody of my cap,’ Ryan jests.
Words: Fiona Crawford
Image: Anita Milas