Out in the COLD
She last played near the Arctic Circle but is now part of the deep freeze in Scotland... Cailin Michie says the lack of warmth shown to women’s football in this country leaves her numb
CAILIN MICHIE has a problem. She is a professional footballer who cannot play professional football. her dismay at this state of affairs in her native Scotland is accentuated by the recent experience of playing during a pandemic, competing in home matches just 60 miles from the Arctic circle and being part of a culture that loudly proclaimed the women’s team as the elite interest in the town of Pitea in Sweden.
Yet, after signing for Glasgow city in December, she has only been involved in training with her team-mates on Zoom and has had to watch from the sidelines as the perennial league winners and champions League competitors are crudely and inaccurately lumped in with non-elite teams in Scotland.
The decision to continue the suspension of women’s football was confirmed by the Scottish Football Association this week.
It has exacerbated the irritation and frustration within the game. Glasgow city, for example, have been fully compliant with testing with stringent protocols.
The club, with powerful justification, might also consider itself an elite team, given 13 consecutive titles, 12 academy teams and a record of producing players that includes supplying 11 (current or past) of Scotland’s 2019 World cup squad.
There is also the mystery whispered about in women’s football circles about
Women are not properly represented in the decision process
netball — an indoor sport that involves passing a spherical object between players — being given the go-ahead while football is left in the cold.
Michie shares this incomprehension, though is perceptive on the reasons behind it. ‘There is a lack of thought and a lack of perspective,’ says the 23-year-old defender.
‘The first document from the SFA had a heading about the elite level. I believed — before reading further — that this surely applied to us and that we would continue to keep playing as we were the equivalent of the men’s Premiership. But, reading on, I discovered we were not. It was interesting wording, to say the least.’
Michie, who graduated in politics from the University of edinburgh last summer, is no intellectual naif. She has spent her life graduating, too, in the world of women’s football where discrimination and bigoted comments offered hard lessons in how progression, both individually and as a sport, was obstructed by high hurdles.
The suspension of the Scottish Women’s Premier League is a further tutorial.
‘Women’s football is one of the fastest growing sports in the world. Generations of players are now getting the recognition they deserve. Players are retiring with an acceptance of their worth.
‘They have now to work themselves on to boards, into decision-making positions,’ says Michie, who echoed a comment made by Judy Murray in a Sportsmail interview earlier this month that pointed out women are not properly represented in the process of coming to decisions that impact on their sport.
‘There isn’t that thought process of women being qualified to be on the board or even the belief that we should seek that perspective.
‘It’s a slow-moving process. The World cup seemed a big moment for the women’s game in Scotland and it is so disappointing that there is this blatant reality there is a lack of consideration for it.’
Michie has spent her life playing the game through school, through Boroughmuir Thistle, on to hibs, then to Pitea in Sweden and now at Glasgow city.
‘As a girl, when you are growing up playing football, you are happy to ignore any comments and the disadvantages because you are on your own path and you console yourself with the actual playing of games,’ she says.
This perspective has been changed sharply by her recent experience in Scotland and her past life in Sweden.
‘It’s been strange for me,’ she says of signing for Glasgow city. ‘I joined the team and then the league was postponed a week before the first game. You are thinking about wearing the strip on your debut and that has just not happened.’
The reality has been Zoom sessions with team-mates.
‘You have your homework, the individual sessions. Then there are the Zoom sessions where I’m trying to recall the names of team-mates,’ adds Michie.
‘It’s difficult being a full-time athlete and not having anything to focus on or no outlet for competitiveness and determination. It is even more difficult when you realise we have the capacity and the funds to operate under the rules. It is difficult to see other teams operating and leagues continuing while we are still having to bide our time.’
The men’s game at Premiership and championship level is playing on and this provides an intriguing contrast to her life in Sweden.
Michie played in Pitea where the women’s team had won the title — the Damallsvenskan — in 2018 but where the men’s team was in the lower leagues.
‘We had an air-dome sort of indoor pitch and a heated outdoor one. There was no question about the training schedule,’ she says. ‘It was essentially women’s first. The men’s team had to fit in.’
The path towards the Arctic circle was sketched out at South Morningside primary school more than a decade ago. ‘I still have the autobiography we were asked to write in primary seven,’ she says. ‘It reads: “My dream is to be a professional footballer”. A couple of years later, in second year, I was already in the Scotland Under-15 squads.’
her progression has been smooth through under-age teams but she awaits her first call-up for the national team.
‘That’s the ambition, obviously,’ she says. But she was encouraged when players she has performed alongside in under-age teams were named in the squad this week to play cyprus later this month in the euro 2022 qualifier.
‘The senior call-up won’t come without hard work,’ she admits. ‘But it should also help that at Glasgow city I will be playing with champions and players who have international experience. I know how difficult it will be. There is more choice than ever for the squad with players in england, abroad and in a pro Scottish league.’
Michie’s spell in Sweden helped her grow as a player and a person. It was brief, lasting only a season. But its effects were profound.
‘It was very important for me. I
It’s difficult being a full-time athlete and not having anything to focus on or an outlet for competitiveness and determination
stayed with my parents all my life and everything was in Edinburgh — playing and studying. Suddenly, I was living in an apartment alone in Sweden and trying to learn a language. It was a quick lesson in growing up.’
She was playing in a competitive league in a town with great expectations. ‘I had to take more responsibility for myself,’ she says. ‘I was free of studying for my degree, so I had the opportunity to focus on what I wanted in my football career. It was exciting.’
It was also convenient. Football, women’s and the men’s, continued during the Covid pandemic as the Swedish authorities largely eschewed lockdowns.
‘I was also surrounded by people who had a perspective about what pro football was really about,’ she explains. ‘When you are young, you compare yourself to someone next to you or focus on how to get better but going to Sweden introduced me more to squad rotation, how to play for the team and the importance of that.
‘The town was so out of the way that all the players had to come from somewhere else and had to be each other’s friends and family. You had to be more selfless. It was about the team, not just an individual perspective. I became better at supporting team-mates.’
This idea of community stretched from the playing field and into the town. Pitea houses just more than 20,000 people but it is the hub for an area that stretches towards the Arctic Circle and has more than 50,000 inhabitants.
‘The town is all about the women’s team,’ she says. ‘The men’s team are in the lower leagues but we were 2018 champions and everyone was focused on us. But we had to provide something for the town. You were stepping into a role where you were looked up to by the community, including the younger kids in the town.’
There was a further lesson, a growth away from the pitch. Pitea emphasised the importance of interacting with the community, with many of the team involved in work in care homes.
‘I did bits and pieces,’ says Michie. ‘You could earn extra wages doing work, mostly sort of social enterprise jobs. You could go into care homes and play games with the residents. After the virus made its impact, you could do their grocery shopping.
‘Looking after each other seems part of the Swedish lifestyle.’
It was a life that Michie immersed herself in before returning home. It was, of course, an integral part of the plan she had formulated at primary school. But does she have other ambitions?
‘I decided my plan B would be to be a rock star,’ she says. ‘My plan C was to be First Minister.’
Holyrood can wait, however. She would settle for the challenge of the day job on the pitch when politics finally allows.