Equality not

chance of promotion this season, but it’s a really exciting and competitive league. We want to be competing at the highest level and winning trophies, as well as producing lots of youth international players.

“I was doing the same job at Man City as I will be doing here. The term was technical director, pretty much overseeing the reserves to the under10s. I was implementing coach recruitment and making sure the philosophy of the club was met, among other things.

“There’s a lot I learned there which I can take here – but this club in its own right is pioneering and trying to do things the Hearts way. You can see the job Roger is doing in the boys academy, and how we can try to replicate that.” Roger Arnott, the Hearts academy director, says a commitment to equality, and not a financial return, is what prompted the club’s owner, Ann Budge, to instigate the women’s academy. It will take in its first players after the end of the current women’s season in November.

“Our model on the boys’ and men’s side is to work really hard at developing young players to create pathways to get to the first team,” Arnott pointed out. “Then to play 100 games in the first team and to absolutely earn, when they’re ready, an opportunity to go