THEY are calling them Shelley’s Heroes. Scotland’s womenfolk might have been playing the game since an early kickabout, frowned upon in the eyes of the kirk, on Carstairs village green in May 1881, but they had never previously qualified for the World Cup. 2018 was the year that Shelley Kerr and her team changed all that.
Okay so the feelgood story which is the emergence of the Scottish women’s team has been around longer than 12 months. Their qualification for the European Championships in the Netherlands, under the stewardship of Anna Signeul, showed a sport heading in the right direction, even if there was the misfortune of being scudded 6-0 in Utrecht when they got there.
As the fates would have it, a revenge mission against England lies in wait at the global showpiece in France next June, alongside the small matter of Argentina and beaten 2015 finalists Japan, but whatever transpires across the channel next summer at least Scotland’s women are showing the men how do it by proving capable of qualification.
The story of their thrilling campaign is worth a recap, all starting in Minsk in October 2017. Typically they had to come from behind, with Jane Ross equalising Anastasia Kharlanova’s opener before the winner flew into the net of Belarusian defender Anna Kozyupa just after the hour mark.
If a 5-0 rout against Albania on their home turf of St Mirren Park was promising, a 1-0 defeat to rivals Switzerland, courtesy of Swiss captain Lara Dickenmann, left them starting at a play-off place. But the Scots refused to surrender to that fate; the return of Arsenal’s Kim Little following injury and the continued emergence of Erin Cuthbert helping them make light of home assignments against Poland in April and Belarus in June.
But the best was yet to come. Trailing 2-0 in the return match against the Poles in Kielce just four days later, a weaker team might have crumbled. Scotland knocked in three goals in the final 25 minutes, with the quicksilver Lisa Evans breaking the home side’s hearts with the 90th minute winner.
Even still, the Scots needed to Switzerland to slip up on the final matchday, in addition to doing their work away to Albania, to make it to the finals. Pegged back at half time after Kim Little’s opener, Jane Ross came through with the close-range finish. When the Swiss obliged with a goalless draw against the Poles, Scotland were going to the World Cup.
Kerr has won 10 of her 14 games in charge but there seems little chance of the success going to her head. “My dad says, ‘hey hen, you’re never off that telly these days,” she said recently. “The only thing your face isn’t on is a bag of cement’. Your feet are never in any danger of leaving the ground in our house.”
Who knows, it maybe even inspired Alex McLeish’s men’s team, who ignored a raft of call-offs and benefited from five goals in two games from James Forrest to book a play-off place at least for Euro 2020 via the inaugural Uefa Nations League.
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