Glentoran Women Football Club is a

women's football Women's football most often refers to: * Women's association football Women's football may also refer to: * Women's gridiron football * Women's Australian rules football * Ladies' Gaelic football * Women's rugby league * Women's rugby union ...

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 ...

and a subsidiary of Glentoran Football Club. The team holds the record as the most successful women's team in the Irish League, having won 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 It was superseded in the 2017/18 season by Premi ...

on ten occasions, most recently in 2023. Having won all four major trophies in the 2020 season, the team was victorious again in the 2021 season, retaining the Irish League, Irish Cup, County Antrim Shield and League Cup to become the first team to ever hold all four trophies, and the first team to retain all four.

2022 Season

As the Northern Ireland Women's Premiership season runs from April to October, the 2022 season was disrupted by the Women's International European Championships held in England during the summer. For the first time in their history, Northern Ireland qualified for the tournament, with a squad including four Glentoran players. This resulted in the players being unavailable for club selection from the start of the season until the tournament had ended in July. Glentoran suffered two major setbacks, losing forwards Caragh Hamilton through injury and

Lauren Wade Lauren Wade (born 22 November 1993) is a Northern Irish footballer who plays as a midfielder for Heart of Midlothian and has appeared for the Northern Ireland women's national team. She has previously played for Coleraine, Glentoran, Umeå I ...

who signed for Reading in the English Women's Superleague following an impressive European Championship. Despite beating

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 ...

in the final game of the league season, Glentoran struggled to regain the fluidity that had brought success in previous seasons, with

going on to win the first league title in their history. Having won the County Antrim Cup against

Crusaders The Crusades were a series of religious wars initiated, supported, and at times directed by the Papacy during the Middle Ages. The most prominent of these were the campaigns to the Holy Land aimed at reclaiming Jerusalem and its surrounding ...

at the Danny Blanchflower stadium a few weeks earlier, Glentoran faced Sion Swifts in the Irish Cup Final on 5 November 2023. Glentoran captain Jessica Foy put the East Belfast side ahead with a free kick that dipped over the goalkeepers head, before Joely Andrews was played through to make the final score 2-0 to Glentoran. Speaking after the game, Glentoran forward Kerry Beattie said that 'whilst we're pleased to retain these two trophies, after the success of the last few seasons we end this season disappointed'.

2023 Season

During the off-season the club expanded its support team to include a specialist strength and conditioning coach, nutritionist, head of media and match day coordinator. On the field the club signed Northern Ireland internationals

Demi Vance Demi Vance (born 2 May 1991) is a Northern Irish footballer who plays for Glentoran and the Northern Ireland women's national team. She has previously played as a midfielder for Leicester City in the WSL and Rangers in the Scottish Women's Pr ...

in defence and Emily Wilson in attack. With days to go before the opening league game of the season, the club announced Northern Ireland U17 international goalkeeper Ellie Scott had also signed for Glentoran. Glentoran started the season strongly and with Cliftonville's participation in the All Ireland final and

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (UCL) is an annual club association football competition organised by the UEFA, Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) that is contested by List of top-division football clubs in UEFA countries, top-divisio ...

, Glentoran move six points clear at the top of the Christmas over the summer month. Cliftonville were then defeated by their North Belfast rivals and when Glentoran beat their rivals Linfield at Midgley Park, the team from East Belfast moved 9 points clear at the top of the table. Glentoran could have won the league season outright with two games to spare had they beaten

at home, but a 1-1 draw meant the league title was secured less than a week later at Seaview with a 0-3 win over Crusaders. Glentoran went on to finish an unbeaten league season at home to rivals Linfield in the final game of the season, two

goals the difference on the night. And so Glentoran added another league title to their collection, with Northern Ireland Kerry Beattie winning the league's golden boot award with twenty eight goals in eighteen games.

European record

In UEFA competitions Glentoran went without a win in their first three attempts. In the 2009–10 Champions League qualifying round they won their first game 2–0 against Roma Calfa but failed to qualify from their group. In the 2024 edition of the competition held in Paphos, Cyprus, Glentoran drew Slovenian champions ZNK Mura Nona. The team conceded two soft goals in the first half and went further behind early in the second half when Mura Nona converted a penalty kick to make it 3-0. This was the catalyst for Glentoran to spark to life and goals from Chloe McCarron and a calmly slotted penalty from Demi Vance put Glentoran back into the tie with 10 minutes remaining. It was too little too late however as the game finished 3-2 to the Slovenians. In the second game of the round 1 mini tournament Glentoran played Armenian champions Pyunik. A first half goal from Emily Wilson, playing in her first European tournament was enough for Glentoran to win the tie 1-0.

UEFA Women's Cup 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. T ...

: * 2005–06: 1st qualifying round 4th * 2007–08: 1st qualifying round 4th * 2008–09: 1st qualifying round 4th

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. ...

: * 2009–10: qualifying round 3rd *

2012–13 1 (one, unit, unity) is a number, numeral, and glyph. It is the first and smallest positive integer of the infinite sequence of natural numbers. This fundamental property has led to its unique uses in other fields, ranging from science to sp ...

: qualifying round 3rd * 2014–15: qualifying round 3rd * 2015–16: qualifying round 3rd * 2021–22: Round 1 *

2022–23 The dash is a punctuation mark consisting of a long horizontal line. It is similar in appearance to the hyphen but is longer and sometimes higher from the baseline. The most common versions are the endash , generally longer than the hyphen ...

: Round 1 * 2013–24: Round 1

Titles

:Winners (10): 2004, 2006, 2007, 2008, 2011, 2013, 2014, 2020, 2021, 2023 *

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 (11): 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2012, 2018, 2019, 2021, 2022, 2023 * NIFL Women's Premiership League Cup :Winners (1): 2019 * County Antrim Cup :Winners (6): 2018, 2019, 2020, 2021, 2022, 2024

Current squad

The squad for the 2024 season was announced on the club's social media channels and is below.

References

External links

* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Glentoran Women Women's association football clubs in Northern Ireland 1985 establishments in Northern Ireland Glentoran F.C. Association football clubs in Belfast Women's Premiership (Northern Ireland) teams