Cliftonville Ladies Football Club is a

women's association football Women's association football, more commonly known as women's football or women's soccer, is the team sport of association football played by women. It is played at the professional level in multiple countries, and about 200 national teams partic ...

club from

Belfast Belfast (, , , ; from ) is the capital city and principal port of Northern Ireland, standing on the banks of the River Lagan and connected to the open sea through Belfast Lough and the North Channel (Great Britain and Ireland), North Channel ...

Northern Ireland Northern Ireland ( ; ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, part of the United Kingdom in the north-east of the island of Ireland. It has been #Descriptions, variously described as a country, province or region. Northern Ireland shares Repub ...

. The club is the women's team of

Cliftonville Cliftonville is a coastal area of Margate in the Thanet District, Thanet district of Kent, England. It includes the Palm Bay, UK, Palm Bay estate, built in the 1930s with wide avenues and detached and semi-detached houses with driveways, gar ...

, and plays in the

Women's Premiership The Women's Premiership, also called the RFUW Premiership was the top level of women's rugby union in England until 2017. It was formed in 1990 and was run by the Rugby Football Union for Women. It was superseded in the 2017/18 season by Premi ...

, the top tier women's football league of Irish League. Cliftonville have won their first Irish League Women's Premiership title in

2022 The year began with another wave in the COVID-19 pandemic, with SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variant, Omicron spreading rapidly and becoming the dominant variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus worldwide. Tracking a decrease in cases and deaths, 2022 saw ...

, and made their debut in the

UEFA Women's Champions League The UEFA Women's Champions League, previously called the UEFA Women's Cup (2001–2009), is a European women's association football competition. It involves the top club teams from countries affiliated with the European governing body UEFA. ...

in the 2023–24 season.

History

Background

On 18 June 1895

's home ground,

Solitude Solitude, also known as social withdrawal, is a state of seclusion or isolation, meaning lack of socialisation. Effects can be either positive or negative, depending on the situation. Short-term solitude is often valued as a time when one may wo ...

, hosted a match between two sides formed by

British Ladies' Football Club The British Ladies' Football Club was a women's association football team formed in Great Britain in 1895. The team, one of the first women's football clubs, had as its patron Lady Florence Dixie, an aristocrat from Dumfries, and its first captai ...

players, a game that has since been recognized as the first women's association football match to take place in

Ireland Ireland (, ; ; Ulster Scots dialect, Ulster-Scots: ) is an island in the North Atlantic Ocean, in Northwestern Europe. Geopolitically, the island is divided between the Republic of Ireland (officially Names of the Irish state, named Irelan ...

; four days later, on June 22, the British Ladies' played their second match in

, taking on a local male selection. Both games were considered a success, and were credited to have helped future developments of women's football both in the

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in Northwestern Europe, north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland, with a population of about 5.4 million. ...

and

2003–2022: From Cliftonville Girls to Cliftonville Ladies

Cliftonville Ladies initially played as Cliftonville Girls in the regional Greater Belfast League, before joining the Women's Premier League, the top tier of Northern Irish women's football, in 2004. Following their rebranding as Cliftonville Ladies, the club became founding members of the

in 2016, as a result of the

Northern Ireland Football League The Northern Ireland Football League (abbreviated to NIFL), formerly known as and still commonly referred to as the Irish League, is the national football league of Northern Ireland. The Irish League was originally formed in 1890, with the leag ...

's decision to take over the running of the WPL. In August 2019, Cliftonville player Billie Simpson was nominated for the 2019 FIFA Puskás Award for a goal she scored in a

league League or The League may refer to: Arts and entertainment * ''Leagues'' (band), an American rock band * ''The League'', an American sitcom broadcast on FX and FXX about fantasy football * ''League of Legends'', a 2009 multiplayer online battle a ...

match against Sion Swifts: in the process, she became the second Northern Irish player to ever receive a nomination for the prize, following

Matty Burrows Matthew Burrows (born 15 October 1985) is a former professional football player from Northern Ireland who played as a midfielder. Burrows scored a jumping backheel volley goal against Portadown to seal victory for Glentoran in injury-time of a ...

in 2011, and the third

all-Ireland All-Ireland (sometimes All-Island) is a term used to describe organisations and events whose interests extend over the entire island of Ireland, as opposed to the separate jurisdictions of the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. "All-Irelan ...

player to do so, if

Stephanie Roche Stephanie Zambra (; born 13 June 1989) is an Irish retired footballer who played as a striker for Shamrock Rovers of Dublin and the Republic of Ireland women's national football team. Her October 2013 goal in the Women's National League (WNL) ...

is included in the count. In June 2022, six Cliftonville players, including national team

captain Captain is a title, an appellative for the commanding officer of a military unit; the supreme leader or highest rank officer of a navy ship, merchant ship, aeroplane, spacecraft, or other vessel; or the commander of a port, fire or police depa ...

Marissa Callaghan, were called up to the 23-women

Northern Irish The people of Northern Ireland are all people born in Northern Ireland and having, at the time of their birth, at least one parent who is a British Nationality Law, British citizen, an Irish nationality law, Irish citizen or is otherwis ...

senior squad that took part in the

UEFA Women's Euro 2022 The 2022 UEFA European Women's Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Women's Euro 2022 or simply Euro 2022, was the 13th edition of the UEFA Women's Championship, the quadrennial international Association football, football champio ...

2022–: First national title and professional status

On 26 October that year, the club won their first ever national title, having won 15 of their 16 league matches throughout the season, under head coach John McGrady. As a result, they qualified for the

for the first time in their history. On 1 March 2023 Cliftonville became the first women's football team in the Irish League to announce professional contracts for their players since their introduction in December 2022, having officially tied down twelve footballers. However, they did not become the first club to register a professional player in Northern Ireland women's football, with Sion Swifts Ladies' Siobhan Higgins being the first player on a full-time contract to be registered on the

Irish FA The Irish Football Association (IFA) is the governing body for association football in Northern Ireland. It organised the Ireland national football team from 1880 to 1950, which after 1954, became the Northern Ireland national football team. ...

’s Comet system, instead. In June 2023, Cliftonville were one of the five football teams from the Irish League that took part in the inaugural edition of the

All-Island Cup The All-Island Cup, known as the Avenir Sports Women's All-Island Cup for sponsorship purposes, is a women's association football competition held on an all-Ireland basis between women's football clubs from Northern Ireland and the Republic of I ...

, where they reached the final, before finishing as runners-up following a defeat to

Galway United Galway United Football Club () is an Irish professional football club based in Galway. They play in the League of Ireland Premier Division following promotion from the First Division in 2023. They were founded as Galway Rovers F.C. during the ...

. During the same campaign, the club won their first Women’s County Antrim Cup in eight years, while also lifting the Women’s Premiership League Cup. In September 2023, Cliftonville made their debut in the

against Benfica in the

first qualifying round First most commonly refers to: * First, the ordinal form of the number 1 First or 1st may also refer to: Acronyms * Faint Images of the Radio Sky at Twenty-Centimeters, an astronomical survey carried out by the Very Large Array * Far Infrared a ...

. On 6 September they suffered an 8–1 away defeat to the Portuguese side: however, Caitlin McGuinness scored the club's first goal ever in a European competition in the process.

Players

Current squad

European record

UEFA Women's Champions League

* 2023–24: ''TBD''

Honours

Senior

* Women's Premiership :Champions (2):

2024 The year saw the list of ongoing armed conflicts, continuation of major armed conflicts, including the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Myanmar civil war (2021–present), Myanmar civil war, the Sudanese civil war (2023–present), Sudane ...

: Runners-up (3): 2016,

2021 Like the year 2020, 2021 was also heavily defined by the COVID-19 pandemic, due to the emergence of multiple Variants of SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19 variants. The major global rollout of COVID-19 vaccines, which began at the end of 2020, continued ...

2023 Catastrophic natural disasters in 2023 included the Lists of 21st-century earthquakes, 5th-deadliest earthquake of the 21st century 2023 Turkey–Syria earthquakes, striking Turkey and Syria, leaving up to 62,000 people dead; Cyclone Freddy ...

IFA Women's Challenge Cup ''For the equivalent tournament in the Republic of Ireland, see FAI Women's Cup.'' The IFA Women's Challenge Cup or Irish Women's Cup is the annual cup competition of women's football teams in Northern Ireland. Currently branded as Electric Irela ...

:Winners (2): 2015 2024 * NIFL Women's Premiership League Cup :Winners (3):

, 2024, 2025 *Women's County Antrim Cup :Winners (2): 2015, 2023 *

:Runners-up (1):

Youth sector

The youth sector of Cliftonville Ladies includes several ranks, with teams competing at under-9, under-11, under-13, under-15, under-17 and under-19 level. The club's under-19 team, Cliftonville Corinthians, plays in the Electric Ireland Women's Academy League, formed and hosted by the

, since its foundation in 2019.

References

External links

Official websiteCliftonville Ladies
on Soccerway
Cliftonville Ladies
at

Squad profile
at ''UEFA.com'' {{Women's Premiership (Northern Ireland) Women's association football clubs in Northern Ireland Association football clubs in Belfast Women's Premiership (Northern Ireland) teams Cliftonville F.C.