Local Heroes Anne O’Brien Stephen Bennett
@stebenn15
with her and there are lovely photos of the two of them walking the streets of Paris together.
In a new series, The Saint celebrates the local heroes who have made an indelible mark on the national and international sporting scene down through the decades. Our second Local Hero is Anne O'Brien - the trailblazing footballer and aunt of former St Pat's defender and current Director of Football, Ger O'Brien. Just go back in time for a moment to Inchicore in the 1950s - a time of harsh austerity, where the church ruled the State, and when children had little else to do for fun and enjoyment but play in the streets or a rare patch of grass. This was the Inchicore that Anne O'Brien was born into and the town where she first learned to kick a football. Born in 1956, little did anyone know back then where Anne O'Brien's love of soccer normally the sole preserve of boys at the time - would take her. She may have raised a few eyebrows and was quite possibly labelled a 'tomboy' for having the audacity to start kicking a ball on a regular basis in the first place.
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Anne with France in 1974
would change the course of her life forever.
Anne while at Reims (France) in 1974
The fact that her death at the age of 60 in 2016 was international news will tell you how far the game had taken her and the influence she exerted. Shortly after her passing in Rome, her brother Tony, as part of an award-winning feature with the42.ie's Eoin O'Callaghan on Anne's amazing career, remembers her early years: "She started playing football from a very young age, on the road in Inchicore. She was about 14 when she played for a team called Julian Vards and they played out
of Donore Avenue or around that area. "She got her first football boots around that time, when my Mam finally gave in and bought her a pair." It's clear her fascination with the 'Beautiful Game' in the 1960s turned into a determination to take it a step further, to get boots and join a team. After a year at Julian Vards, Anne joined All-Stars - a Ballyfermotbased team for a stint which
2021 Season • Vol. 33 • No.32 • St Patrick’s Athletic v Waterford
A step up from Vards, the AllStars did exactly what they said on the tin - it was a collection of some of the best players from around Dublin.
"The game was against Stade de Reims from France who were on a tour of the country. She was only 17 at the time but afterwards they asked her to travel and play with them for the rest of the Irish tour. And after that it was all done really quickly.”
Following a number of hugely successful seasons with All-Stars, international recognition came in 1973 and with it an opportunity to impress on a bigger stage. Anne - still only 17 at the time didn't disappoint.
Such a move was groundbreaking in Irish and UK footballing circles - no female footballer from those shores had ever played professionally in mainland Europe before.
Tony told the42.ie: "She won everything with them (All-Stars) for a few years and it was through them that she was spotted, really. In the summer of 1973, she was called up to an Ireland Selection team.
After another successful stint where she helped Stade de Reims win three successive French championships between 1974 and 1976, her footballing skills was gaining her plenty of attention, as Tony O'Brien explains: “My Ma was in France
2021 Season • Vol. 33 • No.32 • St Patrick’s Athletic v Waterford
“She was after winning the French Cup and was after scoring a hat-trick in that game. Her face was all over the billboards. They called her ‘Nanou’, a nickname that was probably derived from Anne. And there were trips all over the world to play games too. She was in places like Guadeloupe and Haiti and those matches were watched by thousands of fans.” Anne - by now the shining light in a stellar Reims side and a forward in the classic number 10 sense - experienced another 'sliding doors' moment in 1976.
Paris, 1975
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