LISTEN up as it is good news week! Let’s start with the official Uefa rankings which were announced recently whilst keeping our eyes open for the Fifa rankings which will follow shortly in the next week or two.

Scotland are sitting pretty at number eight their highest position yet –just above Italy (ninth), Norway (twelfth) and Iceland (15th) and this little snippet of news will create a further feel good factor around the women’s national team as they go into the winter break.

After that, they will start focusing on the next World Cup game which is on April 5 against Switzerland, who weigh in at number four, knowing that they have six points from two games in the bag.

Big year for our female players and I hope that Scotland as a football nation, will get behind them and show support, particularly at the home games as this can make all the difference to the players on the night, and if you’re a football fan why wouldn’t you go out and lend your support.

NEXT happy bunny must be Gemma Dryburgh, one of Scotland’s top female golfers who has just secured her LPGA tour card for 2018. We really have quite a good handful or more of strong female professional golfers in Scotland, which is quite surprising given some of the obstacles women in golf have faced over the years.

At the recent Scottish Golf conference it was stated that just under 14 per cent of the total membership in golf in Scotland is female. What an opportunity missed, particularly when you hear that membership has dropped by over 50,000 in the past 10 years.

I hope that is going to change, I know there is a lot of work being undertaken by various organisations to encourage more women into the game. This is particularly relevant as Scotland are playing host to the Solheim Cup in September 2019 at one of Scotland’s top golfing venues, Gleneagles.

NEXT is Katie Archibald who changed sports from swimming to cycling just over four and a half years ago. I am sure even she wouldn’t have been able to foresee the impact she would have on the sport.

However, just this week she cleaned up once again, after taking gold in The World Cup in Canada, as a member of Great Britain’s Cycling team. The success Katie has had this year has gone largely unreported by the sports media, and it really deserves to come to the wider notice of the great Scottish public.

THERE are another two athletes who are creating a bit of a racket, Georgia Adderley from squash and Kirsty Gilmour from badminton, apologies for the poor joke.

Georgia is a very talented athlete who could have chosen to have her career in football as she played for the national team at U19’s but she decided to focus on squash. Georgia was crowned GU17 British Junior Champion in October this year and followed up this week by a great performance at the BSPA Boston open, reaching the women’s final.

Kirsty has two good reasons to celebrate as at the end of November she won through to be named Scottish Open Grand Prix Women’s Single champion and became the first Scottish women’s single champion since our very own Susan Egelstaff took the title in 2009.

Even more interesting news from Kirsty this week is the fact that she will be joining the ranks of the Indian Premier Badminton League for 24 days of competition and for a fee of £38,000. This is such a welcome boost as Kirsty was one of several athletes who were affected by the last round of cuts from UK sport, which saw her yearly income slashed by around £30,000.

Now I have given you four for the price of one and I hope you, like me, love a good news story, particularly when it’s about Scotland, winning and sport. It’s about time we celebrated the success of all our athletes in all sports.

l Just a little heads up if you would like to hear more from Georgia Adderley keep your eyes opened for our feature programme #GirlsDoSquash when it is aired early 2018.