792 Home and Away

First  viewed : 7  January  1987

This  was  nothing  to  do  with  Australian  soap  operas  but  a  one-off  documentary  about  two  female  footballers,  Kerry  Davis  and  Rose  Reilly. At  the  time,  the  women's  game  seemed  to  be  defined  by  the  Not  The  Nine  O  Clock  News  sketch  with  Smith  and  Jones  as  two  pervs  sitting  through  a  really  inept  display  for  the  shirt-swapping  at  the  end. That  may  have  been  an  exaggeration  but  there  was  certainly  no  money  in  it  so  Kerry  from  Crewe  and  Rose  from  Kilmarnock  had  to  up  sticks  and  sign  semi-professionally  for  Italian  clubs, Lazio  and  AC  Milan  respectively. Rose  had  actually  been  playing  in  Italy  for  over  a  decade   but  Kerry  hadn't  taken  any  Italian  lessons  beforehand  and  was  struggling  to  settle. I  remember  doing  a  radio  interview  and  tetchily  asking  them "Do  you  not  think  I  would  speak  Italian  if  I  could ?" The  programme  climaxed  with  a  game  between  the  two  sides ; I  can't  recall  who  came  out  on  top.

Despite  her  issues  Kerry  did  play  for  four  seasons  in  Italy  for  Lazio  and  Napoli   before  returning  to  the  UK  and  is  remembered  as  a  top  England  international  as  the  women's  game  rose  in  status. Rose  played  on  until  she  was  forty  and  appeared   for  both  Scotland  and  Italy , winning  the  women's  world  cup  with  the  latter  in  1984.