MALKY: MEN MISSED A TRICK WITH SHELLEY
Kerr denies she’s heartbroken at being back in women’s game and insists landing Scots job is a dream come true
MALKY MACKAY reckons Scottish senior club bosses have made a big mistake by allowing Shelley Kerr to return to women’s football. The SFA performance director has hailed her appointment as national women’s boss but lamented the lack of foresight that has cost Kerr her trailblazer
SHELLEY KERR insists she isn’t nursing a broken heart at her failure to shatter the glass ceiling of a career in men’s football.
The Stirling Uni boss was paraded as the new Scotland women’s head coach yesterday at Hampden, almost three years after she became a tartan trailblazer in senior football.
The 47-year-old was the first woman to be a manager in the Scottish men’s game when she took over at Stirling after a year in charge of Arsenal Ladies that yielded three major trophies, including the FA Cup.
It followed a playing career that saw her win 59 caps as a defender and become a stalwart at clubs including Hibs, Kilmarnock, Doncaster Belles and Spartans.
She holds a UEFA Pro Licence and completed her coaching course with the likes of Alan Stubbs, Gary Locke, David Weir, Alex Cleland and Jim McIntyre.
She studied at Hertha Berlin with Dundee United boss Ray McKinnon and has completed her masters in sports science from Stirling, whom she led to third place in the Lowland League last season.
Most of her contemporaries
When your national team come calling it’s really a no-brainer SHELLEY KERR
have gone on to take charge of Premiership and Championship sides, but her chances of doing the same have been diminished by her decision to step back into the women’s game.
Understandably, she was keen to put a positive spin on her new post yesterday, but SFA performance director Malky McKay spoke for many when he said senior club chairmen had missed a trick in not checking her work out.
Kerr said: “I never applied for any other jobs in the men’s game. Was I ever approached? No comment.
“I did break down some barriers in terms of my role at Stirling Uni and I can only speak positively about my experience, having been well received by players and coaches of other teams.
“But when it’s your national team it’s a no-brainer. I have been conscious of developing personally and professionally. It’s vital you get as much of a skill set as possible so you can do the best job possible.
“Again, I want to emphasise how much being the women’s national squad head coach means to me. I don’t think not going higher in the male game is a gender thing, there are a lot of good coaches out there and the market is significant – it’s competition.
“Going back to the men’s game is not something I have thought about. I’m very much about the here and now as I’m not a planner. But I wouldn’t rule out a return at some point.
“But I am thrilled about my appointment and can’t wait to get started.’
Kerr has two league games left at Stirling before she turns her attention to replacing Anna Signeul, who steps down as boss after the European Championships thi s summer.
Scotland play England, Portugal and Spain over a week in Holland from July 19 and are bidding to progress from the group stages in their first major tournament.
Kerr will take charge of the World Cup qualifiers next season and it completes the circle on a senior international career that began in 1989 when she made her full international debut, coming on as a striker against England in a 3-0 defeat at Stark’s Park.
Kerr has smashed barriers throughout her sporting life she appeared in the Daily Record at the age of 10 when she became the first girl to play for her primary school, Parkhead in West Calder. Her parents badgered her PE teacher at West Calder High to allow her to play with the boys at PE rather than take dancing with the girls and permission was granted, although she
wasn’t allowed to play for the school team.
She travelled by train as a 13-year-old twice a week from West Calder to Meadowbank to train with Edinburgh Dynamo.
She was player-manager at Killie, Hibs and Spartans, left football for nine years after giving birth to daughter Christie, and worked for 17 years in the Mitsubishi factory in Livingston while still committing every spare moment to fulfilling her ambition of a career in the game.
She even spent a season as assistant boss at Stoneyburn Juniors to prove she could cut it in the toughest of rough and tumble in the men’s game.
She said: “I grew up at a time when there was no infrastructure in the women’s game so to come through that? You get a bit of resilience about yourself.
“It’s great to see how much the women’s game has evolved, there has been a lot of progress.
“As recently as 2001 Scotland was still a ‘B’ category team, that is not so long ago.
“A lot of good work has been done in the women’s game since then.
“We need to make sure we continue in the same vein.”