Kerr’s rise from the factory floor is a shining light for Facebook generation
IThe new women’s national team manager earned 59 caps while spending her working week in a Livingston factory.
She raised a daughter. And smashed through the glass ceiling casing female coaches when she took the reins at men’s Lowland League side Stirling University three years ago.
At 46, Kerr knows what it means to confront adversity and obstacles, making sacrifices to improve her career.
Charged with delivering a culture shift in Scottish football, Mackay now wants the Facebook and Nando’s generation of young players to do the same.
Perplexed that too many aspiring players are interested in social media, pie suppers and the trappings of success rather than the hard work needed to get there, Mackay cites Kerr and athlete Laura Muir as female role models youngsters can emulate.
‘How do we get our kids at 11 to become international footballers like Shelley?’ he asked yesterday.
‘Shelley talks about football being her passion since the age of eight and I was the same at Queen’s Park when I played and had a job, as well.
‘There has to be an inner desire to get over adversity — because everyone has adversity in their lives. The ones who come through it, take it on. Others chuck it.
‘Shelley won over 50 caps, worked in a factory, went away, had a baby and came back.
‘She overcame adversity to become the first women’s coach in the men’s game — and is now becoming the national manager.
‘My job is to highlight people like her.’
Kerr will take the reins of the Scotland women’s team from Anna Signeul after the European Championship finals in the Netherlands this summer.
Describing the chance to take charge of the national team as ‘surreal’, the Stirling University coach admitted: ‘It’s one of those moments in your career you don’t recognise until you look back and reflect. But in the here and now, I can’t wait to get started. I’m really excited.
‘There have been challenges along the way.
‘When you are representing your country as a player, there is no better feeling — but I think there is now.’
A former Kilmarnock, Doncaster Rovers, Hibernian and Spartans central defender, Kerr inherits a Scotland team 21st in the world rankings. Growing and developing fast, the women’s game is in a good place. It’s hard to say the same of the male equivalent.
To that end, Mackay has been entrusted with delivering Project Brave, the SFA blueprint to streamline the number of club academies from 29 to around 16 via stringent qualification criteria.
Concerned by the costs and details of the plan, a small band of Premiership clubs have raised concerns. Partick Thistle managing director Ian Maxwell fears it’s the 17-21 age group — rather than the younger and developing players being targeted by Project Brave — where the real problem lies.
‘It does and it doesn’t,’ said Mackay. ‘At 17, there are certain things that become ingrained in them that are not good enough. They’ve got to eat and train properly, train to the extent our top athletes and Olympians do.
‘The period from 17-21 is to get them to play against men as quickly as possible — and girls against women quicker.
‘At 11 or 12, we should show them how hard it is to become a player — that this is how to eat because we’re fighting against genetics and our national diet when too many people are dying in their fifties from heart disease.
‘We look at other players playing international football at 18 and 19 with “A-frame” physiques and we wonder why we are not like that.
‘We’re just not. We like pie suppers. Now we’ve got to educate them. All the way along, it goes hand in glove.’
The biggest hurdle to change is intransigence.
Scottish football is set in its ways. Persuading the rank-andfile fan that the SFA know what they are doing or that talented, respected female coaches such as Kerr can teach male footballers a thing or two is still an uphill task.
‘We have always done it like that,’ explained Mackay, a graduate of a sports management course. ‘But we must try to change.
‘People rail against change. You show them why.
‘You keep them informed all the way along. You have got a better chance of that working than if you just tell people: “This is what we are doing” and it is the opposite of what they have been doing for the last decade.
‘It is about making sure that you inform people all the way along and keep showing evidence of why this could be better.
‘That is how organisations become better in business, in sport, in a variety of different things. You would be arrogant to think we’re fine as we are. I’m not having that.
‘We go and we look at as many different organisations as possible to see the little things. It doesn’t always cost money. You can nick ideas from here and there.
‘You speak to leaders, business leaders and sports leaders. That is how we can change things over a period of time. It takes hard work and it takes open minds. It takes a wee bit of courage.’
Spending his opening months as performance director touring the nation’s clubs, Mackay has received a respectful hearing.
Yet, in Scottish football, change usually comes down to the same question in the minds of chairmen: what’s in it for us?
‘I am seeing a number of people, on first conversations, who are open to change,’ said Mackay. ‘Things have got to a point where we are all fed up with it.
‘It is about people being open enough to change.’
The experience of Kerr might suggest there is still some way to go.
Becoming the first female coach of a male senior team in 2014, she holds a UEFA A Licence.
Yet doors to the upper reaches of the club game remained closed until the SFA offered her a chance to manage her country.
‘You are talking about a glass ceiling,’ added Mackay. ‘Well, it has to crack at some point.
‘It is about someone being brave enough to make that change.’ F SCOTTISH football was full of youngsters in the mould of Shelley Kerr, Malky Mackay has no doubts. His job as performance director of the SFA would be easy.