Rose Reilly (born 2 January 1955), whose married name is Rose Peralta, is a Scottish former

women's association football Women's association football, more commonly known simply as women's football or women's soccer, is a team sport of association football when played by women only. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries and 176 national te ...

player, who represented both

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a border with England to the southeast and is otherwise surrounded by the Atlantic Ocean to the ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

in international football.

Club career

Rose was born in Kilmarnock and was brought up in

Stewarton Stewarton ( sco, Stewartoun,
gd, Baile nan Stiùbhar ...

East Ayrshire East Ayrshire ( sco, Aest Ayrshire; gd, Siorrachd Àir an Ear) is one of thirty-two council areas of Scotland. It shares borders with Dumfries and Galloway, East Renfrewshire, North Ayrshire, South Ayrshire and South Lanarkshire. The headquart ...

, Reilly began her footballing career at age seven with local boys' club Stewarton United and at one point attracted the interest of scouts from

Glasgow Glasgow ( ; sco, Glesca or ; gd, Glaschu ) is the most populous city in Scotland and the fourth-most populous city in the United Kingdom, as well as being the 27th largest city by population in Europe. In 2020, it had an estimated popul ...

side

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language * Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Fo ...

. She was allowed to play in the club provided she cut her hair short and called herself "Ross". She made her debut for the women's side Stewarton Thistle Ladies in 1965 against the Johnston Red & White Rockets. She also competed in Hughie Green's Women's Football Tournament reaching the regional final, she was also part of the Stewarton side which lifted the inaugural Scottish Cup in 1971 and reached the first WFA Cup final the same year. In 1972 she moved to

Westthorn United Westthorn United Ladies Football Club was an early women's football team in Scotland. The team was founded in 1967 by women working at Gay's biscuit factory in Glasgow. It was initially known as the Glasgow Gay Ladies, or Glasgow Gay Eleven. It s ...

where she won the treble of Scottish Cup, League Cup and the first League championship. Westthorn also reached the WFA Cup final losing 2–0 to Southampton. A desire to play football professionally saw Reilly move to French professional ladies' side Reims in 1974. The Scottish Women's FA had reacted to criticism from Reilly and two other players,

Edna Neillis Edna Neillis (15 April 1953 – 13 July 2015) was a Scottish women's association football player, who represented the Scottish women's football team and played in the French and Italian championships. Neillis was born in Glasgow, and raised i ...

and Elsie Cook, by banning them

sine die In mathematics, sine and cosine are trigonometric functions of an angle. The sine and cosine of an acute angle are defined in the context of a right triangle: for the specified angle, its sine is the ratio of the length of the side that is oppo ...

. After a six-month spell with Reims, Reilly was bought by A.C.F. Milan and played for the women's professional team for four years, winning two league titles in the process (of an eventual eight she was to win with a variety of Italian sides). Following on from her initial spell with Milan, Reilly continued to play in Italian football until the age of 40, including spells with the ladies' sides of

Catania Catania (, , Sicilian and ) is the second largest municipality in Sicily, after Palermo. Despite its reputation as the second city of the island, Catania is the largest Sicilian conurbation, among the largest in Italy, as evidenced also by ...

and

Lecce Lecce ( ); el, label=Griko, Luppìu, script=Latn; la, Lupiae; grc, Λουπίαι, translit=Loupíai), group=pron is a historic city of 95,766 inhabitants (2015) in southern Italy. It is the capital of the province of Lecce, the province ...

. Reilly twice won the Serie A Golden Boot during seasons 1978 and 1981, scoring 43 and 45 goals respectively (including Italian Cup). In the 1978–79 season she won championship titles in both Italy and France, playing for Lecce on a Saturday night and then flying to France to play for Reims on Sunday afternoons. She eventually retired aged 40, having won eight Serie A titles, a French title and four Italian Cups.

International career

Reilly played for her native

during the early 1970s. Despite having no formal links to Italy prior to her move to A.C.F. Milan, Reilly was selected for the Italy national team and was voted the best player in the Italian team which won the Mundialito (an unofficial precursor to the Women's world Cup) in 1984. It was reported that

team captain In team sport, captain is a title given to a member of the team. The title is frequently honorary, but in some cases the captain may have significant responsibility for strategy and teamwork while the game is in progress on the field. In eithe ...

Reilly scored in the 3–1 final win over

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

in the northern Italian town of

Caorle Caorle (; vec, Càorle) is a coastal town in the Metropolitan City of Venice, Veneto, northern Italy, located between the estuaries of the Livenza and Lemene rivers. It is situated on the Adriatic Sea between two other tourist towns, Eraclea and ...

. At the 1985 edition of the Mundialito, Reilly featured in Italy's 1–0 win over the

United States women's national soccer team The United States women's national soccer team (USWNT) represents the United States in international women's Association football, soccer. The team is the most successful in international women's soccer, winning four FIFA Women's World Cup, Wom ...

, substituting in for

Viviana Bontacchio Viviana "Vivi" Bontacchio (11 June 1959 – 23 January 2012) was an Italian football midfielder, who won 43 caps for the Italy women's national football team, scoring two goals. Club career Born and raised in the Province of Brescia, Bontacchio ...

on 63 minutes. It was the American team's first ever appearance at international level.

Honours and awards

In March 2007, Reilly was inducted into the

Scottish Sports Hall of Fame The Scottish Sports Hall of Fame is the national sports hall of fame of Scotland, set up in 2002. It is a joint project organised by sportscotland, the national governmental body for Scottish sport, and National Museums Scotland. It is also funded ...

, with a place in the

Scottish Football Hall of Fame The Scottish Football Hall of Fame is located at the Scottish Football Museum. Nominations are made each year by fans and a committee selects the inductees. The first inductions to the Hall of Fame were in November 2004 in a ceremony at Hampden Par ...

following in November of that year.Rose picks up PFA Scotland Award
Scottish Football Association. 10 May 2011. Retrieved 2 November 2014. Reilly picked up a special

PFA Scotland The Professional Footballers' Association Scotland (PFA Scotland) is the association for professional footballers in Scotland. It was known as the Scottish Professional Footballers' Association (SPFA), but that organisation was dissolved and repla ...

Merit Award in 2011 becoming the first female recipient. A portrait of Rose Reilly took centre stage at a new

Scottish Football Museum The Scottish Football Museum is Scotland’s national museum of association football, located in Hampden Park in Glasgow. The Museum The museum houses over 2000 objects of football memorabilia, including the world's oldest cap and match ticket fr ...

exhibition celebrating 130 years of women's football in Scotland in July 2012. Rose was awarded an honorary doctors degree from Glasgow Caledonian University (GCU) in November 2019. She was appointed

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the

2020 New Year Honours The 2020 New Year Honours are appointments by some of the 16 Commonwealth realms to various orders and honours to recognise and reward good works by citizens of those countries. The New Year Honours are awarded as part of the New Year celebration ...

for services to women's football.

Personal life

In 2001, Reilly lived in

Stewarton Stewarton ( sco, Stewartoun,
gd, Baile nan Stiùbhar ...

with her

Argentinian Argentines (mistakenly translated Argentineans in the past; in Spanish (masculine) or ( feminine)) are people identified with the country of Argentina. This connection may be residential, legal, historical or cultural. For most Argentines, ...

husband Norberto Peralta and daughter, Valentina.

References

External links

Scottish Hall of Fame profile

'A Scottish heart beating under an Italian jersey' - World Cup winner Rose Reilly
(video) {{DEFAULTSORT:Reilly, Rose 1955 births Living people Scottish women's footballers Footballers from East Ayrshire Scottish Football Hall of Fame inductees Italy women's international footballers Scotland women's international footballers Expatriate women's footballers in France Expatriate women's footballers in Italy F.C. Kilmarnock Ladies players Serie A (women's football) players A.C.F. Trani 80 players Italian women's footballers Women's association football forwards Dual internationalists (women's football) Members of the Order of the British Empire Stade de Reims Féminines players ACF Milan players ACF Firenze players Scottish expatriate women's footballers Scottish expatriate sportspeople in France Scottish expatriate sportspeople in Italy A.C.F. Prato players