Ellen Molloy learning to love football again and targeting Ireland return

Irish Times

14-05-2025

Soon after Ellen Molloy took the plunge and left Wexford Youths for Sheffield United in the English Championship last September, she had one of her regular chats with her grandmother, Breda Roche.
'She was asking me how it was going and I just let on. I said, 'oh, it's great, we had training today, it was grand'. And Grandma says, 'I can tell you're not enjoying it'.'
She knew you too well?
'She did,' she laughs. 'She just said, 'you don't have to please other people, you don't do this for anyone but yourself. When you were at Wexford, you were always smiling'.'
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Over in England? Not so much.
It had nothing to do with the club.
'I couldn't say a bad word about them, they were so good to me,' says Molloy.
It was because when she was mulling over their offer of a professional contract that she learned her grandmother had stage four lung cancer. It was crushing news for the 20-year-old.
'We were very close. Calling her my Grandma doesn't really do it justice, she was a lot more than just that to me. She was my number one supporter, usually the first person I'd call after a game. She didn't care if I was playing for a Sunday League team or for Ireland. All she wanted was for me to enjoy it, she just wanted me to be happy. She'd be watching my games at home on her iPad, although when she saw me do my ACL she said she'd never watch again. But she did.'
Ellen Molloy was capped at just 16 by former Republic boss Vera Pauw. 'I'm ambitious, I want to play for Ireland again, but I want to be happy too.' Photograph: Laszlo Geczo/Inpho
It was in September 2022 that Molloy suffered that anterior cruciate ligament injury, one that kept her out of the game for a year just at a point when she was flourishing and living up to her billing as the league's brightest young talent.
Vera Pauw recognised that ability two years earlier when she made the Kilkenny native one of Ireland's youngest ever senior internationals, at just 16.
The injury, then, was a devastating blow.
'It felt like the worst thing that could have happened to me. All I'd ever done was play football, so when that was taken away it was like I didn't even know who I was.'
'So when I came back from the injury, it felt like I had to make up for lost time. I had always hoped to play in England one day, so when the chance came with Sheffield United, I felt like I had to take it – because you never know if you'll get one again.
'But maybe I rushed going over, maybe I wasn't fully ready. My head wasn't right after the news about Grandma, I just felt I couldn't leave her.'
She agonised over the decision, but eventually, encouraged by those around her to seize the opportunity, she set off for Sheffield.
'The management, the players, they were brilliant with me, but because of Grandma, my heart just wasn't in it. It got to a stage where I just didn't even enjoy the game. I'd be just waiting for training to be over so I could go home. Most days we were done by 2.0, so I'd sit in my bed for the rest of the day and do nothing. And that's not me, I've always been someone who likes to keep busy.'
That chat with her grandmother was the last 'real conversation' they had. Come October, she got the call from home, she needed to be back in the next day or two.
'And about a week later, Grandma passed away.'
'I remember everyone saying to me at the time that she would want me to go back to Sheffield, but deep down I knew she wouldn't. She knew me better. She knew I wasn't happy. But I did go back. A week later, I scored against Birmingham and I remember not feeling one bit of happiness. There was none of the usual joy when you score. That's how bad my head was. I'd lost my love for the game. There was just nothing.'
Ellon Molloy scores against Birmingham as former Ireland team-mate Birmingham's Louise Quinn (right) looks on. 'I remember not feeling one bit of happiness. There was none of the usual joy when you score.' Photograph:'I knew what I needed to do for myself, and that was to go home. To be with family, be with friends, step back, and see if I could remember why I started playing football. See if I could find that love again. And the only place I felt I could do it was Wexford, my second home.'
She knew how it would look, quitting after four months.
'But if I'd stayed, I'd have fallen out of love with the sport completely. I'm ambitious, I want to play for Ireland again, but I want to be happy too. Grandma taught me how important that was.'
'And I think the challenges of playing the game professionally aren't spoken about enough, it goes from being fun to being your job and that can be hard. So much free time to fill too, when you've been used to a life of combining studies, work and football.'
She's back to that life now, working towards becoming a PE and geography teacher, doing the occasional four-hour return trip from Kilkenny to a Dublin school where she's brushing up on her training.
'I'm trying to find the sweet spot in it all, but I wouldn't rule out going back to England, or wherever, in the future. For now, though, I just want to get back to being that child who played the game simply because she loved it. And at Wexford, I'm finding that love again.'
She won the last of her seven caps for Ireland last year, after Eileen Gleeson recalled her to the squad after a two-year absence, and if she maintains her form for Wexford – eight goals in her last six games – she might well catch Carla Ward's eye soon enough.
'But I've a lot do before I'm even in the conversation,' she says. 'I'd love to play for Ireland again, but most of all, I just want to get back to loving playing football.'