{"id":1295,"date":"2022-02-27T13:41:57","date_gmt":"2022-02-27T13:41:57","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/2022\/02\/27\/shaunagh-mccarthy-city-edition-interview\/"},"modified":"2023-08-22T09:42:27","modified_gmt":"2023-08-22T09:42:27","slug":"shaunagh-mccarthy-city-edition-interview","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/2022\/02\/27\/shaunagh-mccarthy-city-edition-interview\/","title":{"rendered":"Shaunagh McCarthy – City Edition Interview"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

By Aoife McDarby for City Edition<\/strong> <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaunagh McCarthy, 22, plays left-back or left wing for Cork City Women\u2019s Football Club and is going into her fourth season with the club. She is in her last year of college studying Geography and History, as well as playing for UCC in the university league and having a job. Although this is very overwhelming schedule. Shaunagh says, \u201conce she found the balance\u201d, she was well able to stay on top of it. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaunagh started playing soccer from an early age. She started playing football with the boys as she \u201cplayed a load of sports\u201d as a child. She took a break from playing for a couple of years as she was unable to play for the schoolboy league as there was no girls\u2019 team. Shaunagh went on to join gymnastics when she could no longer play football and did this at \u201ca very high level\u201d for a few years. But when a girl in school approached her about joining the Wilton team her, after \u201cputting it off for weeks\u201d, Shaunagh returned to football at the age of 16, and she \u201chasn\u2019t looked back since\u201d.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

She encourages young girls \u201cto stick at it\u201d and to \u201ckeep practicing in a green or estate\u201d. She also recommended to \u201cplay with people older than you, as you will keep learning all the time\u201d and \u201cto focus on one or two things at a time and make those apart of your game\u201d and then \u201cimprove after that\u201d. Shaunagh herself looks up to players such as Katie McCabe, the Irish captain who \u201cplays the same position as me and also plays for Arsenal, she is basically livng my dream\u201d, Shaunagh replied. She also is inspired by former Cork City striker Saoirse Nonan, who played both soccer and Gaelic football at such a high level and is now plying her trade with Durham Ladies in the English Championship. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It has been a dream of Shaunagh\u2019s to play for Cork City since she went back playing soccer, and her family\u2019s support for the club influenced her ambition of playing for the team. She mentioned how her family are \u201creally, really big supporters of Cork City FC and are season ticket holders\u201d. Her family \u201cgo and watch the men’s team every weekend\u201d and now \u201cwatch all her matches\u201d as well. Shaunagh\u2019s goal for the near future, hopefully in the next year is to \u201cplay for Ireland\u2019s women’s team\u201d, with her long-term goal being \u201cto play for a league team in England\u201d, preferably with her beloved Arsenal. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

City\u2019s first game of the season, at home to Galway United on Saturday, March 5, is a big match for Shaunagh, who is racing to get back from injury. Her ankle and ACL troubled her last season, when she injured her ankle on the same leg back in July, as her ankle was compensating for her ACL injury two years previous. Last week it was \u201ccausing her trouble and swollen\u201d so Shaunagh had to sit out of training. Now she is \u201creally excited to be back playing and to be back on the pitch with the girls\u201d. To prepare for her first match back, she has mainly been focusing on her physio to ensure \u201cher fittest levels are back where they need to be to play at an elite level\u201d, as well as well as \u201cdoing a lot of gym work\u201d in her own time to make sure she is in the best form possible to go back. \u201cThis can be mentality draining sometimes but it is all part of the process to get back,\u201d Shaunagh reflected but once she is back, she will be delighted. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Her serious ACL injury two years ago has given Shaunagh a philosophical outlook on injuries. During that time out, her brother reached out Arsenal\u2019s Hector Bellerin for her birthday, who around the same time as Shaunagh also experienced an ACL injury. Shaunagh soon after received a letter from the club. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cI thought I had gotten trials or something,\u201d she jokes. \u201cI thought it was the best thing ever.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Shaunagh\u2019s family play a huge part in her football career. When asked about who inspires her, her mum and dad first came to mind as \u201cthey bring me everywhere and come and support me at all me matches\u201d. Shaunagh also mentions how her family have really supported and motivated her to get back on the pitch after her injury. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cThey all pitched in and got me back to where I am now. They were always pushing me and checking in making sure I was alright\u201d, as well as bringing her to training and \u201ceven extra training when I had one-on-one sessions\u201d. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

With next weekend\u2019s game in mind, Shaunagh spoke on behalf of her team to say they \u201cwould love to get more supporters out to our game on Saturdays now that times have changed to 5pm\u201d. City broke the attendance record for a Women\u2019s National League game last season and Shaunagh says it was \u201cone of the best feelings\u201d she has had when playing for City.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cHaving so many singing and chanting really helped us get over the line and we hope to see many of those faces and more back this season.\u201d <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

By Aoife McDarby for City Edition  Shaunagh McCarthy, 22, plays left-back or left wing for Cork City Women\u2019s Football Club and is going into her fourth season with the club. She is in her last year of college studying Geography and History, as well as playing for UCC in the university league and having a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1296,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2,5,3,45,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1295","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news","category-news-featured","category-news-social-feed","category-website","category-womens-team"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1295"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2498,"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1295\/revisions\/2498"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1296"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/corkcityfc-posts.speiredev.ie\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}