Awards a winner as they make welcome return

LAST weekend’s Scottish Women’s Football Awards, resuscitated for the first time since 2013 and sponsored by MG Alba, were inspiring and well-deserved recognition of the enormous amount of unpaid work put in by players, coaches and volunteers. Without them there would be no domestic game.

Whatever criticism SWF attracts, and there is still plenty from the top end of the sport, the governing body staged a really good night. Hopefully the awards will now become an annual event.

The SBS SWPL1 player of the year was Glasgow City’s Nicola Docherty capping a fine few days in which she was also called into the Scotland squad for the game against the USA. A natural athlete who revels in going forward, the left-back had drifted out of national contention but now has renewed incentive to work her way into Shelley Kerr’s World Cup plans.

The same can be said of Hibernian striker Abi Harrison, who won the top league Golden Boot award. And in SWPL2 there was a fine double award for Motherwell captain Suzanne Mulvey with the striker, still one of the best in the country, wining both the player of the year and Golden Boot awards.

Grant Scott was rewarded for a cup double in his first season at Hibs by winning coach of the year, but team of the year went to 12-time SWPL1 champions Glasgow City.

The international player award was won by Erin Cuthbert. The 20-year-old’s attitude epitomises the tougher mentality which the Scotland team are developing, but her acceptance speech – relayed by video on the evening before she scored an excellent goal for Chelsea – also revealed a maturity way beyond her years. NOT long now until the World Cup draw in Paris on December 8. Kerr divulged during a questionand-answer session at the SWF awards that she wouldn’t mind being in the same group as England.

Why not? Injuries and a debatable team selection were largely responsible for the 6-0 Euro 2107 hammering. It would be good to have a re-match on better terms.