IT is the end of an era for Scottish football with the recent announcement of the resignation of Women’s National Team Coach, Anna Signeul, who will take up a new appointment in Finland later in the year. Anna, who hails from Sweden, has been at the helm for over 12 years now, following close on the footsteps of Dutch coach, Vera Pauw, who was the first full-time appointment by the Scottish FA, to coach the women’s national team.
I was part of the interview panel that appointed Anna back in 2005 and she was up against, at that time, the current women’s assistant national coach and a coach from New Zealand, the three short-listed candidates. Part of her vision at that time was her passion to mentor as many women into coaching positions as she could, to help provide a strong base for the future of the women’s game in Scotland.
It’s now 12 years on and my hope for the future is that this work has come to fruition and that it will be manifested with the next appointment. I believe it is now time for a home based coach to take over and this time round, given the aim and ambition of the incumbent coach to mentor female coaches, we should have a choice of good qualified home grown candidates. This is an important step for the Scottish FA as it is time to send out the right signal to all those aspiring young female coaches in Scotland, clearly expressing the sentiment that there is a role for them within football’s governing body and the wider football family, here in Scotland.
Scottish Football will gain a huge boost from the women’s national team’s participation in the Euro finals in the Netherlands this year and whoever takes over the role of National Coach must capitalise on this and be prepared to hit the ground running. I hope the successful candidate will have a working knowledge of the women’s game in Scotland and a vision on how best to take forward, not just the national teams but also the development of the game for the next twelve years, and beyond. This could be a pivotal time for football for women and girls in Scotland and along with the recent appointment of Donald Gillies into the role of Head of Development for Girls and Women, football now has an opportunity to move forward and increase participation, develop new coaches and officials and cement the sport for females of all ages and abilities as the number one sport in Scotland.
Moving beyond football, I would like to send my congratulations to Team Zariba, who have become British Synchronised Skating Champions. Team Zariba are a synchronised ice-skating team from Aberdeen who have won their third British Synchronised Skating Championship. The Aberdeen club racked up a score of 98.33 points to retain their national title in Nottingham last week.
They have a great range of ages currently skating with them, from aged 15 to 26. In fact their junior teams, Team Azura and Team Topaz also achieved good results to finish third and fifth respectively in their own classifications. Their dedication to the sport goes above and beyond with the team regularly training at 5am at the Lynx Centre in Aberdeen and they also have to fit in choreography and fitness sessions.
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