CITY GO THE EXTRA MILE TO PREVENT A LOST GENERATION OF TALENT

FOR those dreaming of being future stars of the Scotland women’s national team, the long wait is finally over. After a year without competitive football, the talented girls in the Glasgow City academy, like girls all across the country, returned to contact training on Monday after lockdown restrictions were lifted. There may have been no competitive youth football in the last 12 months but that does not mean staff behind the scenes at the 14-time Scottish Women’s Premier League champions have not been busy. Fearing a lost generation of promising young female players due to the Covid-19 pandemic, City have been going the extra mile to engage with the 160 girls in their system. ‘It’s great to see grassroots football back. Our academy has not played competitive football in a year and it’s been a struggle for the players,’ Glasgow City chief executive Laura Montgomery told Sportsmail. ‘In the last few weeks, the Under-12s have been able to contact train and the 12-18s have been doing social distance training but, as of Monday, they could get stuck in again. ‘It’s a big relief. It’s probably been a challenge for parents to keep their kids off screens and keep them fit and active during the winter lockdown. ‘But we worked hard to keep in touch with the kids, with first-team players doing videos of coaching drills that could be done at home and there was fun stuff like quizzes and fancy dress nights on Zoom. ‘As a club, we’ve worked really hard on that and I take my hat off to all the coaches and staff at the academy. ‘The last thing I wanted to happen was us coming back and having lost girls to the game. Thankfully that has not happened.’ Glasgow City’s first team came back from four months in lockdown when they faced Celtic in a derby clash last Sunday. But Montgomery was dismayed that the nation’s top female players were placed in cold storage while their male counterparts in the Scottish Premiership and Championship kept playing. She said: ‘I’ve been on my high horse with how the elite end of the women’s game has been stopped. ‘Not only could young girls not play but they couldn’t watch their idols play on television or live stream, or read about them. ‘The men’s game was deemed too important to be stopped and that was frustrating because girls were marginalised during lockdown.’