“I looked into playing with a boys team when I turned eleven, but realised that it was something I’d thought about doing a bit too late and wrote it off,” explains Niamh.

“Then the FA changed the rules when I was 12 for under 13s, so I’d be able to play that season. It was too good an opportunity to pass up, so I just went for it!”

Going for it paid off. Now at 16, Niamh has been playing with the boys for five years and has just written a book on what its like to be one of the boys on the pitch.

While playing comes naturally for Niamh, accepting her as a player doesn’t always come so easy for the other boys on the team.

“Training is on a big open field and when I walk across the boys will look over and think, I’m just a new player” Niamh explains. “Then they’ll look again and think that I look a bit like a girl.”

“Then when I’m close they realise that I am a girl and they’re always all, ‘Is that legal? Is this allowed?!”

“When you play well though- as soon as you get your first tackle in if you’re a defender, or as soon as you get the first good shot in as a striker- that’s when they start to see you as a player.”

“On the first match, the parents on the side always say “I can’t wait to watch her, to see what she’s like”

“I’m not really skilful though, I’m not tearing through the opposition, I’m a stopper. After the first five minutes they just see me like another player and that’s what I want.”

“When the coach addresses the boys too, he calls them lads. The first time i turned up he goes lads- and girl- and made a real point of adding me on.

“As the season went on though, he stopped and just included me in the lads. It might sound stupid, but that makes you feel like you’ve been accepted.”

Niamh is paving the way for the next generation of female footballers, but is there enough attention on girls in football?

“I think women’s football is going  in the right direction,” says Niamh. “Since the Olympics in 2012, there’s been a quite obvious interest in the women’s game.”

“I don’t think i would have achieved anything that i now have, if i hadn’t played with the boys”

“A few years ago if someone said that they wanted to be a professional women’s footballer it sounded crazy, but now? It’s looking more like a reality…”