“If you are only going to score one goal for your country, it might as well be a free kick into the top corner against England.”
As far as a claim to fame goes, Gillian Wilson’s is right up there.
The fact that she is one of only three female players to have scored for Northern Ireland against England makes her achievement even more special. Being the most recent too, even though it was 37 years ago, adds another layer.
If one of the current squad can emulate Gillian in front of a record-breaking 16,000 crowd at Windsor Park tonight, it will be a moment never to be forgotten.
Even though her big moment was almost 40 years ago and in front of just a couple of hundred fans at Allen Park, Antrim, the memory of whipping the ball past England’s stalwart goalkeeper of that era Terry Wiseman is still fresh in Gillian’s mind.
“We got a free-kick outside the box and I was nominated to take it. I hit it and the referee blew his whistle and called it back — I didn’t have a clue why and still don’t,” recalled Gillian in an exclusive interview with the Belfast Telegraph during a recent visit back to Northern Ireland from New Zealand, where she has lived for the past 32 years.
“I didn’t know what to do the second time so I just thought ‘Ah I’m just going to do the same thing again’ and scored.
“It went right into the top right-hand corner and the goalkeeper didn’t even see it coming. It was amazing.
“She said to me after the match ‘nobody has scored a goal against me like that ever’.”
Nobody from Northern Ireland has scored against England in a women’s international since.
The female game has come a long way in the last few years. Compared with the early 1980s, it’s unrecognisable.
There was no player pathway then, no development squads or underage teams. A fish supper in the dressing room as a pre-match meal — something which Gillian remembers happening more than once — would probably be, at best, frowned upon nowadays too.
Football was in the blood though. Gillian’s second cousin John (Jackie) Scott, played for Manchester United and won two caps for Northern Ireland - both at the 1958 World Cup, against Czechoslovakia and France. Legendary brothers Danny and Jackie Blanchflower were also distant relatives.
However, the door opened to the international stage opened completely out of the blue for Gillian after having to tie up her long hair in order to look like a boy so that she could play in the school team at Mersey Street Primary.
“I played with the boys on the street and then I joined the Young Farmers with a lot of friends. I worked in veterinary research because they were in it,” said Gillian.
“They had a big fun weekend and there was a five-a-side football competition.
“I was playing when this little guy came up to me in a long mac with a clipboard and he said to me: ‘Would you like to play 11-a-side?’ and I said ‘Eleven-a-side what?’. I told him I didn’t know they had 11-a-side football. I had no coaching, no nothing. I had just played with the lads.”
Gillian Wilson says she had no ambitions to play international football when growing up
In a whirlwind few weeks, she went from that five-a-side kickabout to becoming an international footballer.
“A man called Trevor Johnson rang me and I went down to train with Post Office Ladies,” she remembers.
“I was training with them, we had a couple of friendlies and Paul Malone came along to Trevor and said ‘where were you hiding her?’.
“I had never played 11-a-side in my life and, all of a sudden, I got selected in a training squad for Northern Ireland, so the first full 11-a-side game I even played was for Northern Ireland against Scotland.”
In recent times, the Northern Ireland women’s team have enjoyed the luxury of charter flights to some away games.
It was different kind of charter plane that took Gillian and her team-mates across the Irish Sea to Scotland for that international debut.
“We had to hire four or five little tiny planes that carried four people each — and we had to pay for it,” said Gillian.
“I said I was never going to do that again — I hate flying even though I have been in New Zealand over 30 years and travel back to Northern Ireland — I was a nervous wreck by the time I got there.
“I don’t know which was worse, that or going on the Belfast to Liverpool ferry on one of the worst days on the Irish Sea ever.
“It took us days to get anywhere when we played.”
Now aged 60 and running her own landscape gardening business in Christchurch, Gillian still dons the boots when she can. Later this year she is due to head to Australia’s Gold Coast for the Pan-Pacific Masters, having won a bronze medal last time out.
Whatever she goes on to do, nothing will top that goal against England.
“Football was just fun and an outlet for some girls,” she said.
“Aspiration-wise, playing football for Northern Ireland wasn’t on my radar when I was growing up, but for me to have achieved that is huge.
“It is one of the most important things in my entire life and I am very proud of it.
“We weren’t getting fantastic results and beating big teams, but when you put on that shirt it is a very special thing.
“To score against England at that level is huge and it wasn’t luck, I knew what I was doing.
“I didn’t actually realise how few of us have actually scored against England.
“I might be Northern Ireland’s most recent goal scorer against England, but I hope I’m not the last.”
