Our women’s game and the very real fear of a lost generation

GLASGOW City chief Laura Montgomery has voiced fears a Covid-19 hangover could cost Scotland a lost generation of young female footballers.

The 14-time Scottish Women’s Premier League champions are preparing to resume action in April after four months in lockdown.

But while the nation’s top female players were ordered into cold storage, Scotland’s male Premiership and Championship clubs were allowed to carry on playing through the winter spike in coronavirus cases.

That decision still rankles with City chief executive Montgomery.

And she is worried the feel-good factor built up around women’s football in the wake of Scotland’s qualification in 2019 for their first World Cup has been allowed to fritter away because Scottish girls have been denied the chance to see their heroines in action. Montgomery said: “We’ve gone through a year where young girls have not been able to play football.

“There are loads of young girls who will have simply stopped playing football and might not come back. This will have happened for boys, too, I’m not denying that.

“But the difference is boys will still have been able to watch men’s football, they can see their team and still have those role models. It’s about seeing who you want to be.

“But that has been denied to young girls. If they can’t get out to play, can they still watch their heroes on TV? Can they listen about them, read about them? No.

“It just all stopped and the frustrating thing is that the men’s game was too important to stop but ours wasn’t. The momentum the women’s game had off the World Cup is probably largely forgotten now.”

Claire Emslie and Kim Little in game against Cyprus.