BY any standards, Suzanne Grant’s debut for Motherwell at the start of last month was sensational. The 31-year-old former Scotland striker struck 11 times as her team demolished Edinburgh South 21-0 in the Scottish Women’s Football League Second Division.
There’s no chance of a repetition tomorrow when Grant and her team-mates face Premier League side Celtic in a Scottish Cup quarter-final. If there is, Scotland goalkeeper Gemma Fay will be announcing her early retirement.
Grant laughs at the idea of putting 11 past her old team-mate. An already tough task has been made more onerous by Motherwell being without a number of first-team players, but optimistic as ever, the former Glasgow City, Hibernian, Arsenal and Celtic forward doesn’t believe in lost causes.
Grant, whose son Oscar will be two in November, returned to a lower standard of football after leaving Celtic last winter. She is one of the irrepressible characters of Scottish women’s football, irredeemably in love with the game.
With an international career that brought 104 Scotland caps and 13 goals, Grant has found the ideal club for this stage of her life. There were familiar faces when she joined Motherwell, several other 30-something former Scotland players, including captain Stacey Cook. They provide a backbone of experience which is unheard of at Second Division level and invaluable to the young players who make up the rest of the side.
“We’ve achieved everything we want to achieve in Scottish football and your priorities change,” Grant says of herself and her experienced team-mates. “Oscar is my priority now and Motherwell are very understanding of that. I just want to play football now for the enjoyment, as opposed to winning trophies or whatever.”
The club have also recruited Megan Sneddon, a mainstay of the Scotland side as recently as 12 months ago, but she is off on a pre-arranged trip to America and is one of the players unavailable. The truth is this Motherwell side are far too good to be in the Second Division, but they are somewhat ludicrously being forced to work their way up through the leagues despite there being development and reserve teams ahead of them in the pecking order.
Motherwell will be in the First Division next year having already achieved promotion with maximum points from their first 13 games – and a staggering goal difference of 141. They have been averaging more than 11 goals a game, and quite what this does for them, or the teams they sweep aside, is a matter for very limited conjecture.
With the SWPL being split into two leagues next season, it will be a minimum of three years before Motherwell can hope to reach the top level. Yet according to Grant, they are already more professional in their approach than almost any other Scottish club, with general manager Alan Burrows every bit as enthusiastic about women’s football as his predecessor Leann Dempster. “It’s a pleasure to help Motherwell because of what they want to do for the women’s game,” Grant says. “Alan comes to a lot of our home matches and is so supportive of the women’s game. When I went to sign, he gave Oscar a strip and a ball.
“We train at the club and they have pre-match at a hotel on Sundays which I’ve never had at a Premier League club. It’s the best I’ve experienced at any club in Scotland.
“I had never heard of Graeme McArthur [the head coach] until I went to Motherwell but he’s great. I was a bit worried about what the standard would be like at training, but it’s such a professional set-up. Motherwell don’t want low standards just because they have had to start in a lower league.”
Grant was one of 11 players who left Celtic last winter, but despite the exodus they have performed credibly in the SWPL this season, sitting fourth with a young squad. They will be fitter than Motherwell but, goalkeeper Fay aside, do not have their opponents’ experience.
It would have made for an even more intriguing contest if the lower league side were able to field all their best players, but Grant believes the potential for an upset remains.
“There is no pressure on us whatsoever,” she said. “We’ve never been the underdogs in any game this season so this will be a different. We’re going to give it everything we have.”
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