Louise Quinn went on quite the journey during her playing career.
From editing her own highlights videos and sending them to agents, through a move to the Swedish second tier that led to Champions League football, signing for Arsenal 24 hours after her club Notts County liquidated and becoming a mainstay of a WSL title-winning team, she landed up in Italy during Covid-19 before finding stability and embracing motherhood while at Birmingham City.
“For me, it’s all about community,” the Blessington-born former centre half says. Her obsession with football – both Gaelic and soccer – started at an early age.
“My dad played Gaelic football and football with his work, so there were always a couple of footballs in the garden. I had two older sisters who didn’t show much interest, but I was attracted to them straight away.”
Initially switching between the two sports, Quinn eventually began to lean more towards football. It took some years before she became the towering centre half Arsenal fans remember her as.
“I was a striker for some time. Michael Owen was my favourite player so I wore the No10 and played up front. Then I moved back to midfield for quite a few years, even coming into my senior years. I played in midfield probably until I was 20 or 21.”
She even partnered Arsenal legend Ciara Grant in the Ireland engine room for her first two caps. However, Quinn made the move back into defence “as I got older… and taller!” she recalls.
Before donning the famous green Ireland jersey Quinn, like many of today’s women footballers, cut her teeth playing in boys’ teams around her local area. “I played for a boys’ team from six or seven years old, a girls’ team started up when I was about nine or ten. I was playing for Blessington’s Boys’ and we played against Peamount United.
“They had a couple of girls in their team and the coach for Peamount scouted me from that game when I was about 12.”
Quinn’s leadership skills were obvious and she was made Peamount captain at the age of 16. She also tasted Champions League football there, a feat she would repeat with her next club slightly further from her County Wicklow home.
“I had finished uni, my best friend at the time was Fiona O’Sullivan and she said she thought I should try to go professional and gave me her agent’s number.”
When it came to finding a club, Quinn took a very hands-on approach. “I did another year of uni focusing on football alongside sports and exercise management, and it included a module on analysis. From there, I learned to clip videos. It would take me about eight hours to produce six or seven minutes of clips, but I sent it to the agent and he sent it around. I didn’t have a clue what I was doing really!”
Swedish second-tier side Eskilstuna United came in with an offer. “I didn’t have too many offers, but Sweden had a great reputation for women’s football and one of my team-mates had played there and said it was really solid.
“This was a second division team but my agent said this was a club that really wants to grow and go somewhere, and it’s not attached to a men’s team.”
Louise realised she would have to leave Ireland to pursue a professional career, and then fate intervened to make that move easier. “I had a friend at Peamount called Vaila Bardsley who had been in the Arsenal academy. She was an accountant at KPMG in New York but decided to give it up to play football.
“She was also a six-foot tall central defender and she was looking for a club as well. I was chatting to Vaila and she also had an offer from Eskilstuna United. That was a bit of a pull because I would be going with someone I knew. We were thick as thieves, the two of us.”
Eskilstuna had big ambitions and they realised them during Quinn’s tenure. They were promoted to the top flight in her first season and followed that up with seventh and then second-placed finishes in the Damallsvenskan, the latter of which earned them Champions League qualification.
“It was a totally community-based team. We started with crowds of about 200 but quickly got to about 6,500 and we had to put extra seats in. We got promoted and we were soon in the Champions League playing really good football.”
Quinn remembers the job of building the club’s profile was a very hands-on affair. “As international players, we had professional contracts whereas a lot of the Swedish girls had jobs, so we had time during the day. We just got stuck into everything: we visited schools, did a lot of coaching, the club ran football camps, I judged bake-offs in the town.
“We would give tickets away as gifts and prizes; sometimes we were putting posters up in local businesses. We totally gained the trust of the community and played good football alongside it.”
Quinn spent four years in Sweden, but by 2017 she thirsted for a shot at the WSL. “I wanted to go to England. Notts County had a decent reputation, they had players like Laura Bassett, Carly Telford, Rachel Williams, Jade Moore and Jo Potter.”
> “My agent called me and said Arsenal would like me to train with them the next day.”
Notts County initially had big ambitions after taking over WSL founding club Lincoln City. But just a few months after Quinn joined, the club was dissolved suddenly.
“We got a text late on a Thursday night that training had been cancelled but to come in for a meeting. I had only just arrived in Nottingham and got a car; I wasn’t settled yet.
“We had England internationals who had the Euros that summer and people who had got a house. The owner didn’t even come in and tell us himself – he said he had a family emergency. It was pure shock.”
But Quinn’s fortunes turned very quickly. “By late that afternoon, my agent told me that Arsenal were interested. I was walking around the shops in Nottingham thinking my career was probably over and that I’d have to go to Ireland. My agent called me and said Arsenal would like me to train with them the next day. Thankfully it was quick.”
Quinn arrived at a time when then-coach Pedro Martinez Losa was seeking a senior centre half to bring experience to a young back line. “The timing was really good. Anna Patten and Lotte were just coming through; Leah had an injury and so did Jemma Rose. Casey Stoney had just left.
“I think Pedro saw me as a more experienced centre back when Arsenal needed a little more seniority. It was great timing for me. If Leah and Jemma weren’t injured it might not have happened.”
Quinn was initially given a two-month contract, but she quickly earned a longer deal: “I just absolutely threw myself into it.”
Early in her first full season, Arsenal made a managerial change, with Losa leaving and Joe Montemurro arriving in November 2017.
“Joe was brilliant tactically; he was so clear about what he wanted. He was a great guy too, very laid-back, and he brought that to an Arsenal team who were under a bit of pressure because they’d not won the league in a while.”
Quinn had to adapt to Montemurro’s preference for ball playing centre halves. “I found it a bit hard mentally at the beginning and wondered if I was out of my depth. But I went into training like games; I knew I had to be so switched on to be up to the level.”
> “I just absolutely threw myself into it.”
Louise, who won 121 caps for Ireland during her career, remembers the day things changed for her.
“We played Reading away, we were 2-1 down and I came on for the last 20 minutes. They were playing long balls over the top and that suited me – I won a lot of headers and broke the play up.
“We won 3-2 and that was the moment for me. That was the turning point for my confidence to see that my old-school defending could work well. I kicked on then.”
The Gunners won the League Cup in 2018, beating Manchester City 1-0 in the final. Quinn says that was the launchpad for what was to follow. “Getting that piece of silverware was really important.
“The final was played at Wycombe, where I had played that Reading game, and I had a really good feeling. It felt like Joe had got us in a good place. It took a bit of pressure off us; it was the catalyst for what we would then do.”
Quinn started 17 of Arsenal’s 20 WSL games in 2018/19 and says it was the best season of her career. “Easily. I felt solid. I consistently had good games. I had figured out how Joe wanted me to play. He had to work hard and he didn’t want me to lose who I was as a player, but he wanted me to want the ball and be confident of keeping it.
“I had Katie beside me who I had a strong relationship with. Same with Leah, who I felt I was able to read. She would go on a mosey into midfield and I was like, “OK, I’ll stay here and lock up shop.”
In the summer of 2019, Arsenal bought Jennifer Beattie and Quinn’s game time began to reduce, with her contract set to expire in the summer of 2020.
In early 2020, Beattie required surgery on a back problem and Quinn worked her way back into the team. But the outbreak of Covid and subsequent cancellation of the season made for an unsatisfying end to her Arsenal story.
“I think Beats had an injury and I had just got back into the team. I was feeling good and my performances were sound, but I probably knew that my contract wouldn’t be extended. I understood what was happening, but I didn’t get a chance to finish the season and say goodbye. It just felt a little incomplete.”
She had to train alone during lockdown, and eventually went to Serie A. “When I went to Fiorentina there were so many challenges, Covid being one. You’re going from Arsenal, where you have everything and all the training is tailored by sports science, to not having that in Italy.”
She spent the 2020/21 season in Florence isolated due to travel restrictions at the time before returning to the WSL. “I wanted to get back to England. Birmingham was one of the options, and I knew it was a difficult time for the Blues at that stage but I enjoy a scrap! I knew a lot of the girls on the team and it just really feels like home. I have found a home here.”
She spent four seasons as Birmingham City’s club captain before calling time on her playing career in April 2025, shortly after Louise and her partner Eilish had their baby boy Daragh. Quinn is still with Birmingham as their female football ambassador and player engagement lead.
“I’m split between the Foundation and the club,” she says. “I go to a lot of schools around Birmingham looking at how we can get more boys and girls involved in playing football or in sport generally.
“It almost harks back to my time in Sweden because all that community work is really, really important. It also helps us because we want to get bums on seats and start to build attendances.”
If Quinn’s career shows us anything, it’s that she revels in the hands-on approach.
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