Lisa Fallon - First Among Equals

Growing up in Dublin in the 1980s, Lisa Fallon had one female soccer role model – Gabriella Benson.

A woman working in a male-dominated environment, Benson oversaw a professional men’s team – unprecedented at that time.

There was one problem. Benson was fictional – the lead character in UK television series The Manageress.

It still had an impact on the teenage Fallon, watching back home in Ireland.

“It was the first time I ever saw a woman in football,” Fallon told Women’s Soccer Coaching. “It was incredible.”

“I don’t know, if I had never seen it, if I would have pursued it [a career in soccer]. It just goes to show that whole thing of ‘you can’t see, you can’t be’”.

Fallon went on to become Ireland’s first female head coach of a men’s pro club. She was also the first female pundit on men’s professional matches on Irish TV.