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Irish Daily Mirror
25-06-2025
- Sport
- Irish Daily Mirror
Ireland footballing legend looking to master another sport
It's coming up to the 12-year anniversary of that goal, the strike that changed everything for Stephanie Zambra, and now post-retirement she is continuing to challenge herself but in another sport. Football will still always take precedence but next week is the culmination of a different journey where she will play in the KPMG Women's Irish Open Pro-Am. Golf used to be a passion for the 36-year-old, ever since the days when she played with her brother's eight iron in the makeshift golf course in their local estate in Shankill. And this summer she jumped at the opportunity to take part in Golf Ireland's First Tee initiative. 'When I was younger we were very lucky we had loads of green areas so whenever any sports were on we were out playing it,' said Zambra. 'Whenever the golf was on, we'd go out and my brother played a little bit when we were growing up, and he had a set of golf clubs and he always used to leave his eight iron in the hallway, so we used to always go out with that and a few golf balls. 'We actually made a little golf course down in our estate that had little holes in the ground. We had three holes that we used to play through so we used to play a bit outside, but I never had any lesson or knew what I was really doing. 'I was just kind of hitting the ball and hoping for the best. I always had a keen interest in trying to learn, but didn't get around to actually learning until I was retired from football because I was so busy.' Zambra played 58 times for the Republic of Ireland over a remarkable 15-year international career, while she also played club football in France, the United States, England and Italy. Her own personal highlight was representing her country while the famous Peamount United strike against Wexford Youths in October 2013 catapulted her into the limelight all across the globe. It led to her appearance at the Ballon d'Or ceremony, rubbing shoulders with the likes of Lionel Messi and Cristiano Ronaldo, and her goal finishing only second to James Rodriguez for the Puskás Award. Zambra ended up back in Ireland at the tail end of her career, spending a few seasons with Peamount United again before she finished things off at Shamrock Rovers. She retired last season but returned to the Hoops where she is a coach in Collie O'Neill's backroom team there, while she also helps out with the Ireland U-17s. Meanwhile, her home life has also continued apace where she and her husband, Dean, have their own business Champion Coaching. 'The FAI are doing a program called the Player-to-Coach pathway. There's myself, Aine O'Gorman and Rianna Jarrett doing it, so the idea is that we get experience in the underage setups and see how it works and how it runs, just to try and get into coaching really. 'I've been coaching now for a long time. I went to America years ago in my early 20s coaching in camps and ever since then I have had an interest in getting involved and coaching and we set up our own coaching company about seven years ago now. 'I go into schools and I coach after school programmes and we do camps, we do small group sessions with actual players who have ambitions to go and play at a higher level and we do girls' clinics so I'm coaching all the time. 'When I retired from playing, Collie asked me to come on board as a coach as well so I'm doing that too. It's very busy. I don't have any evenings free, but I wouldn't have it any other way. 'I love being involved. It's better to be involved than to completely cut myself off from it, having been involved for so long.' To continue with that theme, Zambra was delighted when the opportunity arose at Golf Ireland this summer. Having prior knowledge of the game and a natural competitive edge has certainly helped her take to the game. And her coach, Hazel Kavanagh, noticed the talent that was there right from the outset. 'Hazel would always compare different things to football,' said Zambra. 'When you're playing football, if you're taking a free kick, you usually plant your standing foot in the direction where you want it to go and it's the same with golf. 'When you're hitting the ball, you need to plant your hips, sometimes I'm probably pointing my hips, but not the club, so in terms of aiming she compares that a lot to football. 'I've been up with Hazel quite a bit. The first lesson I went to she said to me that I strike the ball quite well, which kind of gave me that little bit of enthusiasm then. The worst thing is if you go somewhere and you know you're terrible at it straight away. 'Hazel was quite complimentary of me and obviously gave me a few little tips and hints to kind of improve my drive and stuff like that and ever since then I've just said I want to get better at this and anytime I go out for a lesson try to take on board everything she says. 'Sometimes you forget it then when you go onto the course, the hardest thing is trying to remember to get the information that you're given. 'It's just so frustrating, that's the biggest thing I'll take from it because there'll be times where I do hit a really good shot and then the next shot might not be as good, so you've ruined a good shot. 'I'm trying to bring it all together and have good shots consistently, it's probably the hardest part.'
Irish Times
14-05-2025
- Sport
- Irish Times
Ellen Molloy learning to love football again and targeting Ireland return
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'.' READ MORE 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.'
