THE red revolution has well and truly begun at Solitude. There were uprisings in the past but they usually fizzled before too long.
But this new push from the Cliftonville Ladies, it feels authentic and on firmer ground.
Whatever unfolds in tonight's Danske Bank Women’s Premiership title decider between Cliftonville and Glentoran at The Oval (7.45pm), the revolution will carry on regardless.
To think the north Belfast side mustered only two wins last season gives an indication of just how far they've travelled in such a short space of time.
"When you look at the progress and improvement we have to be happy,” said Cliftonville coach Clare Carson.
“We’re in the very early stages of a rebuilding process and what we want at the club. It’s not a one season build, it’s going to be continuous.”
With very little to shout about during the early throes of the global pandemic last year, the Women’s Premiership being granted elite status, when every other rung of sport had ground to a halt, was probably the moment Cliftonville Ladies turned the corner.
A former manager of the Ladies team and head of Women’s Football at Solitude, Martin Douglas explains: “We came in last year during the whole COVID situation – Brendan [Lynch] and John [McGrady] and myself as we coached the Olympic [men’s reserve team] for a couple of years.
“It was during the time that only elite football was allowed and the Women’s Premiership was classed as elite, so we stepped in for the last couple of games of the season and then the opportunity came around to move across [on a permanent basis]. I spoke to [Reds officials] Gerard [Lawlor] and David Begley – it was an exciting opportunity because women’s football is getting bigger and bigger.”
The Reds board backed the plan to replicate all apparatus from the men’s section in the women’s section of the club.
The team hasn’t looked back since.
In years gone by and not only at Cliftonville, the women’s section at clubs was seen as an add-on, an after-thought. In fact, unofficial club historian and dyed-in-the-wool supporter Clare Kirkwood admits she didn’t know Cliftonville had a Ladies team until around 2013.
“There is still a bit of mystery as to when the team actually began,” she says. “Some people say around 2006. It might have been the time the new 4G pitch was put down.
“It was around 2013 that I heard the club had a women’s team and I’d been at Cliftonville all my life.”
This season has been nothing short of remarkable for the Reds Ladies.
Since suffering a 4-0 home defeat to raging-hot title favourites Glentoran on August 4, the Cliftonville strung together a brilliant run to re-assert their championship challenge.
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***Wednesday August 25 (Solitude): Cliftonville 0-0 Linfield Ladies***
CLIFTONVILLE absolutely pummel Linfield but can’t score. Lauren Currie, in the visitors’ goal, is having one of those daft nights where she gets some part of her anatomy in the way of Cliftonville’s countless shots.
Louise McDaniel is a box of tricks down the right side.
Kirsty McGuinness on the opposite flank taunts and teases the Blues back-line.
On this night, Marissa Callaghan is the patron saint of lost causes.
Her GPS stats must be off the charts. The harder the Reds try the more inspired Currie in the Linfield goal becomes.
The game finishes scoreless. Nobody quite knows how. But Cliftonville are still alive.
***Wednesday September 1 (Solitude): Cliftonville 9-0 Derry City***
THE Reds will have tougher games – but sometimes you just have to sit back and enjoy the exhibition laid on by Kirsty McGuinness and Marissa Callaghan. Technically, tactically, their touch, spatial awareness, everything – they are untouchable on the night.
Striker Caitlan McGuinness, Kirsty’s younger sister, fires five goals in an awesome display of finishing. The poor Candystripes can’t wait for the final whistle.
***Wednesday September 8 (Solitude): Cliftonville 2-1 Crusaders Strikers***
ANOTHER virtuoso display from Marissa Callaghan – 20 years wearing the blood-red jersey and still on top of her game.
The Northern Ireland international knows how to celebrate too. She slots home a late penalty; she runs and leaps six feet into the air. Another three points.
They keep turning the screw on the Glens.
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INTERNATIONAL week beckons and the Reds contingent decamp to Inver Park to rout Luxembourg 4-0 in their opening World Cup qualifier and a few days later three of the club’s players – McDaniel, Kirsty McGuinness and Callaghan – get on the scoresheet as Northern Ireland thump Latvia by the same score-line.
“I went to the qualifier against Latvia and I found myself getting emotional during the game – with three Cliftonville players scoring the first three goals in front of 5,000 fans,” says Douglas.
“You look at Marissa: she’s been at the club for 20 years. She’s been there through the bad times – and there have been a lot of bad times. It shows how much she loves the club, and everyone loves her around the club.
“She’s so positive with the young players, and so competitive as well.”
Carson believes the recent success of the senior international Ladies team is feeding into the domestic game, especially among Cliftonville’s ranks where McDaniel, Callaghan, the McGuinness sisters, Kelsie Burrows and Toni-Leigh Finnegan have stepped up.
“At Cliftonville, we have exactly the same structures, the same coverage, same profile as the men,” says Carson, who retired from playing at the end of last season.
“That’s what you want and there’s a lot more buy in. Even from post-match interviews, it’s everything you’d see in the men’s game. People might be pleasantly surprised by the standard but it’s nothing that we didn’t already know. You only have to look at the Cliftonville players who are playing in our international team.”
It was minding the small detail and maintaining exacting standards once McGrady, Lynch, Douglas and Carson stepped into the breach towards the end of last season.
“Coming from the men’s side of things there was a bit more professionalism,” says Douglas.
“We set down a few non-negotiables – just rules and regulations. Things like: you always have to come with your Cliftonville gear on, right down to your socks. To be fair, after two weeks, we didn’t have to say anything. The players were pulling each other up in the changing room on things, about why a player was late and stuff like that.
“We looked at areas where we were short and areas where we’d like to strengthen and to be fair John, Brendan and Clare spoke to the players and basically sold them the package, we talked about the vision and the professionalism of the women’s part of the club and they’ve bought into it.”
“We brought new players in and they were impressed by the standard of the training sessions. There are challenging sessions and the girls enjoy it.”
Carson adds: “I think the guys that came in during last season got a bit of an eye-opener in terms of how the women’s team was working so they spent a lot of time on improving structures, even tiny things so that we could improve.
“How we train, when we train, how often we train, and trying to change that culture of the club and with a bit more depth to the squad it was more difficult to keep your place if you missed a game or missed a training session. It’s brought that bit of competition that wasn’t necessarily there before.”
Louise McDaniel had already won four league titles with Linfield before moving to England where she featured for Blackburn. She later moved up to Scotland and was playing for Hearts before the global pandemic struck and forced her home.
She’d heard good things about what was happening at Cliftonville. She met with Brendan Lynch. He put together a presentation and outlined the team’s vision going forward and how McDaniel’s skills set was integral to the plan.
“I was really impressed with Brendan’s plans so I signed and with so many of my international team-mates in the team I fitted in straight away.”
The women's league remains strictly amateur - but the standard of the game has improved beyond recognition in recent years.
Style, it seems, matters at Solitude. The coaching staff has implemented an exciting brand of football that perhaps leaves them slightly open at the back that the Glens have exploited a couple of times already this season, including a 2-1 win in the Irish Cup semi-finals.
A draw at The Oval tonight will be enough to seal the title for Glentoran, while Cliftonville need to bag all three points and do the same again at home to Sion Mills next Wednesday night.
But knowing they are already on bonus territory may just liberate the Reds this evening.
“At the start of the season I would've taken your arm off to be in this position,” says Douglas.
“The Glens are a real quality side. This is really only our first year. We’ve come this far so quickly. But there is a massive opportunity to go on and create history. If they don’t we are still building and if it’s not this year, it’ll be next year or the year after that. We are not just building for one season – this is for the long-term.”
West Belfast native McDaniel (21) regards tonight’s clash as one of the most important of her career to date.
“Obviously this is our first season together and what we’ve achieved so far is amazing - but we don’t want to stop here.”
