Ruesha Littlejohn never really planned it the way it turned out. She was happy enough doing what she was doing, scoring goals for the Scotland underage sides and working her way towards a senior call-up.
When she was young, she used to “kid on” about representing Ireland, but the notion was never seriously entertained, the path of least resistance was open to her and that was the one she took. Until . . .
Littlejohn is stingy with the details but suffice to say her face didn’t fit and she unwittingly embarked on the road to representing Ireland.
In two meetings with Scotland, she hasn’t quite experienced what Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy, if selected, are likely to this Friday, but she wishes she had.
Like most elite sports people, Littlejohn reckons she’d grow a foot in that atmosphere and she expects the Everton duo to do the same at Celtic Park. No better incentive than having a point to prove.
“I was with them (Scotland) through the youth teams,” recalls Littlejohn, “through 15s, 17s and 19s – and then the 19s had quite a good team at that level and we’d reached the European finals. I was playing with them.
“When I was 18, I’d played my last game for them. One of the managers wasn’t so keen on me and ever since that I never played for them again.”
Go on.
“Em, well, the senior manager wasn’t a fan of mine. I think she thought I had too much carry on, a little personality, and she wasn’t really into that. Ever since then I never really played for them again.”
Three years passed and no international football. A move to Arsenal from Glasgow City changed all that, as Ireland internationals and fellow Gunners Emma Byrne, Niamh Fahey and Yvonne Tracy alerted the FAI to her eligibility through her maternal grandparents and the association made an approach.
No brainer
“It was a no-brainer after that” and the 24-year-old has now played 22 times for Sue Ronan’s side.
Like McGeady and McCarthy, her ties are well woven. “We used to spend every summer there (Coney Island, Co Antrim), every summer we were at the house for six weeks of holidays and we used to go over for the Easter holidays too.”
Having just won promotion back to Norway’s top tier with IL Sandviken, Littlejohn is again contemplating what comes next. She’s in talks with the Bergen club but, for now, the stark reality of the women’s game means she’s back at River Island in Glasgow, while also working as a carer. “I need the pennies,” she laughs.
This Friday, she’ll leave work like the rest of us and find a perch for the game, in one of Glasgow’s Irish pubs.
The last time a Scottish-born senior Irish international lined out against Scotland was when Littlejohn faced her country women in a European Championship qualifier in June 2012, as she had done in April of that year, and before that it was Ray Houghton in 1987.
Neither occasion was a particularly happy one for Littlejohn, with Ireland beaten home and away and the striker playing a combined total of just 47 minutes, two of those at Tynecastle that April where she was spared the vitriol that will be reserved by some for McGeady and McCarthy this Friday.
It was well-known around the ground that she was a former underage footballer with Scotland, one who had scored freely for the under-19s, but the locals let it slide and she had no compunction about facing friends and former team-mates, it spurred her on.
“No not at all, obviously I knew all the girls and stuff, so if anything that made me want to get one over on them because I know them all from Glasgow, so for me it was no different [than any other game].”
For the Everton duo, she recognises, “it’s going to be a bit different”, but McGeady, in particular, will feed off it.
“McGeady will obviously be buzzing for it, he played for Celtic and he loves Parkhead, so if any of the fans get on their backs, the kind of players they are, they’ll probably buzz off it and, if anything, it will probably work in their favour.
“I think that will give them a good buzz, it will give them that extra kick to push on and try and do what they can do. I know I would enjoy that, so I’m sure they would too.”
Inexplicable
The duo’s “defection” was, and still is, inexplicable to some. Former Scottish international Gordon McQueen said he hopes the pair get a “horrible reception” if they play, and added: “You’re either Scottish or you’re not Scottish and you should know that by the time you’re 12 years of age.”
He’s not alone. It’s been rather simplistic stuff from certain quarters but for Littlejohn the explanation is even more straightforward. “Aiden McGeady and James McCarthy have got lots of Irish links in their family too. So, for them, they’re Irish, they just want to make their family proud, they want to represent Ireland, just the way I did in the end.”
