Irish Gunners going for European glory

Women's Uefa Cup final, second leg Arsenal (1) v Umea (0): Mary Hanniganmeets the Irish contingent at the Arsenal women's club ahead of tomorrow's final leg

It's deepest leafy Hertfordshire; first on the left is Watford's training ground, but, much like the newly relegated side's league campaign this season, there's no sign of life. It's an entirely different ball game just up the road; autograph hunters gather at the entrance, security men carefully monitor all comings and goings, extra vigilant on this day because inside some of the English Premiership's most highly prized and extravagantly paid footballers are filming a Nike advertisement.

God forbid any photographers hiding in the bushes would snap themselves a sneak preview.

Theo Walcott, out injured these days, leaves early, the 18-year-old's registration plate reading "TJW", the J for James.

When his girlfriend passed her driving test last year he bought her a VW Beetle, complete with a "M444 TJW" plate: "Melanie for Theo James Walcott." Money to burn, these boys.

Behind him, in the players' car park, even if you donned your shades you'd be blinded by the opulence. It's an all-out assault on the senses, the sniff of wealth overwhelming, as is the luxuriousness of the facilities at Arsenal's training ground, London Colney. Ten indoor and outdoor pitches, a hydrotherapy pool, a steam room, massage baths, a gymnasium, a canteen, a media centre, treatment and administration rooms, and a full-sized indoor pitch under construction. Also on site is a laundry.

"You got me out for an hour," says one of the women who works there, Yvonne Tracy, whose daily task is to ensure the men's first-team squad's training gear is pristine when they turn up for duty.

She laughs when she hears her Arsenal and Republic of Ireland team-mate Emma Byrne, who used to work in the laundry, claimed one of the perks of the job was "handling Freddie Ljungberg's underwear". (But not while he was in it, she was quick to add.)

"Yeah," says Tracy, "he comes in in just his shorts so you see a Calvin Klein model walking around, so it's not too bad, is it?"

Tracy, whose brother Shane was on Arsenal's books until last September, has one thing in common with Theo Walcott - she's out injured. But that's where the comparisons end.

The 26-year-old from Limerick might have already won more trophies for Arsenal than Theo will muster before he retires, but she lives in a very different world.

As Walcott heads for home, Tracy limps from the laundry to the media centre, but the Irish defender insists she can see light at the end of the tunnel after a miserable year out from the game. "It was against Everton in the league, the knee just went from under me, it just cracked," she says.

"I missed last season's FA Cup final and the league decider, having played every single game up till then."

Worse, she is missing the biggest occasion in the 20-year history of the Arsenal women's team, tomorrow's second leg of the Uefa Cup final against Sweden's Umea.

Two-time European champions Umea, the only full-time professional women's football team in Europe, who have in their ranks the 2006 World Player of the Year, Brazilian Marta Vieira da Silva, were expected to cruise to a comfortable first-leg lead in Sweden last Sunday, but Arsenal, the first English club to reach the Uefa Cup final, won with an injury-time Alex Scott strike from 35 yards.

"Someone says to me, 'Was it a girlie goal where it just went strolling by and the keeper missed it?'" says Tracy.

Who asked you that?

"One of the men's physios," she says, throwing her eyes to heaven, laughing at the same time.

Tracy watched the game from the sidelines, but her Irish team-mates, goalkeeper Byrne and midfielder Ciara Grant, were at the heart of the action.

"The first 20 minutes of the game I think everyone was a little bit shell-shocked," says Byrne. "I think I might have touched the ball maybe 50 times in the whole league season, then 20 times in the first 10 minutes against Umea. The difference? Fitness, strength, speed and Marta. It showed. But we got to grips with it. It was a fantastic result."

Byrne's shock at coming up against a team capable of competing with Arsenal is understandable enough when you bear in mind their league season. On Wednesday night they wrapped up their fourth successive league title with a 5-1 win at Chelsea. The stats say it all - played 19, won 19, scored 107 goals, conceded seven. Their nearest rivals, Everton, are 17 points behind.

"We beat Fulham 14-0 or something like that, something ridiculous," says Tracy, "I hate watching, I don't even go to some of the games, I'll go to the gym instead. I just couldn't be bothered, we're just winning by so much."

Fulham are bottom of the women's Premier League with just three points from 19 games.

It's only a few years since the London club had the only full-time professional women's team in England, but, says Tracy, "they pulled the plug on the money" and that was that.

It's not that there's much money to be made for Arsenal's women, but the club is, by some distance, the most committed to the women's game in England, the recently departed vice-chairman David Dein one of the most enthusiastic supporters of the women's section, regularly turning up for their matches.

Seven of the first-team squad, including Tracy, Byrne and Grant, are full-time employees of the club - Byrne is a goalkeeping coach with the Arsenal Ladies Academy and Grant is an assistant ladies development officer.

Tracy is in her seventh year with Arsenal, "part of the furniture now", having been recommended by Byrne and Grant to coach Vic Akers, who doubles up as the men's first-team kit manager. Grant (28), from Waterford, arrived nine years ago, Byrne (27), regarded as the finest women's goalkeeper in Europe, the season after.

By then, Byrne, who first took up football under the guidance of Mick Delaney in Coláiste Chiaráin in her native Leixlip, while also playing Gaelic football for Kildare, had already spent two years in Denmark with Fortuna Hjorring, but was happy enough to escape.

"Everything's rural, like. You train every day, but that's all - football, full stop. I didn't know anybody there, it was a bit difficult, I got homesick. The food, language, everything - and everyone was on roller blades," she laughs.

She was home for a year when she was invited to Arsenal for a trial - "They needed a goalkeeper." They signed her after two days and she's been there since.

They looked after her, initially giving her a job in their "box office", then the laundry, before she bid adieu to Freddie's underwear and took up a full-time coaching position at the club.

The academy, where she coaches the goalkeepers, caters for girls between 16 and 19, their education looked after at Oaklands College, down the road from London Colney, where they live on campus.

"Arsenal have the best opportunities now for young players," says Byrne, "if I had that when I was younger I'd be sorted - I'd be a professional, a doctor, a plastic surgeon," she laughs.

"We have a couple of Irish kids here and it's a great opportunity for them. At home, in Ireland, it's about family and friends and you've got football every now and then - over here football is your first priority. You're training every day. What you eat is about football, what you do recreationally is about football. It's so different. Your whole life has to be dedicated to it, and unless it is you're not really going to make it.

"Girls have come and gone who've decided it wasn't for them, and that's fair enough, but if you want to play at the best club this is the place to do it."

The Irish connection at the club is a significant benefit to Noel King, Republic of Ireland manager since 2000. "We've improved unbelievably since Noel came in," says Byrne. "Everything - the way the FAI have helped us, the training, all that, and the standard of kids coming through is so impressive. I was on the first Fás football course, with Ciara and a few others, but there hasn't been one since - it's brilliant to hear they're starting another one. That can only up the standard."

Some things, though, never change. "We've been doing a lot of media stuff for the final; you know, photo shoots, the difference between you in your football kit and you in a dress, stuff like that. Not my favourite.

"But I don't mind it, to be honest. I don't like all the make-up and stuff at the time, but it's nice to be able to see the difference because I think a lot of people still have the perception that women's football is quite butch, and I can't blame them either because obviously . . . well, I can't say (laughs). Retract!

"But it is nice to see the difference because there are a lot of attractive girlie girls in the game and you have to try and get that across, and that's how you do it. Get dressed up, get yourself in the paper."

And with that, during the academy training match behind her, one of the girls gets a thunderous smack in the face from the ball. "Oooh," says Byrne, "she was pretty."

The rewards for such pain, she insists, are modest. "It's just like a normal job. People think because we play for Arsenal we can pay for all the rounds," she laughs, "but it's just average pay. It is, though, easier for us because we're doing what we love."

But if they win the Uefa Cup tomorrow? Will they get a bonus? "Are you serious?" says Tracy. "No chance! A key-ring and a Uefa Cup bag and a water bottle, that's it."

Not even a company car bearing the registration plate "AFC 1 UEFA CUP"? Probably not.

Come Monday, European champions or not, it'll be back to Freddie's underwear.