Scotland’s greatest ever female footballer has told how she was labelled a “weirdo” as a child for playing the game.
Rose Reilly, 68, who was once named the best female player in the world, said her legacy is the number of girls who now play football.
Reilly, from Stewarton, in Ayrshire, played for European giants AC Milan and starred for Italy after being banned from playing for Scotland for criticising the SFA.
Despite being the only Scot to have won the World Cup and being named the world’s best female footballer in 1984, it took until 2007 for her to be recognised as the first woman in Scottish football’s Hall of Fame.
She told BBC Scotland documentary series Icons of Football: “My parents didn’t want me to play football, I got expelled from school for playing football and I got called all the names when I was walking down the street, like ‘weirdo’.
“I was only about six years of age when I played for Stewarton Boys Club. The manager John Roy said ‘will you play for our team Rose?’ and of course I was delighted.
“He said ‘you’ll need to go to the barbers and get a boy’s haircut’, so I did. I changed my name from Rose to Ross. I changed my gender basically to play football.
“There was a certain game when I scored eight goals and there was a Celtic scout there who said ‘I want to sign the wee number seven’. The guy said ‘no, it’s a wee lassie’. The scout said, ‘no, the one with the dodgy haircut that scored all the goals’ and he was told ‘ it’s still a wee lassie’.
“I was gutted. I thought if I was good enough, why could I not play for Celtic.”
Reilly starred for Scotland in the historic first international match against England in 1972. But the fixture was not sanctioned by the SFA and could not be played at Hampden - instead taking place at council-owned Ravenscraig Stadium in Greenock.
Reilly said: “It was nearly impossible to play football because the SFA didn’t recognise women’s football. We weren’t allowed to play in official grounds, we weren’t allowed referees, but we persevered and we were prepared to go it alone to play the beautiful game.
“It was such a proud moment putting on the Scotland shirt and I scored in the game. They ran out 3-2 winners but it was a great advert for the women’s game. You’re representing your country at the game you love so it doesn’t get any better than that.”
With women’s football derided in Scotland, Reilly went to Italy and AC Milan, who made her captain and dubbed her “La Roccia” - the rock. Banned from playing for Scotland, she accepted an offer to represent Italy.
In 1984, she scored as Italy beat West Germany in the final of the women’s World Cup and the same year she was named the best female player in the world.
But women’s football has undergone a revolution in Scotland in recent years, and Reilly, who was awarded the MBE in 2020, said: “I played when there wasn’t much visibility but I know what I did.
“Now young girls approach me in the street - wee girls that have started playing football only about eight years of age.
“They named the sports centre after me in Stewarton, it’s now the Rose Reilly Sports Centre. When that was named after me, the next day 40 girls of eight years of age signed up for the girls’ football -- for me that’s a legacy.
“The more that I do now, the more visibility, the more these girls can actually see it actually happened and I’m there behind them, I’m backing them.”
She added: “Before, when a child was born and it was a wee boy, the dad was always at the hospital, ‘oh, here’s wee Jack, he’ll play for Scotland one day’. I want him to say the same thing when his wee girl is born.”
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