Sutherland Women are setting examples for future stars as new Highlands and Islands League season starts
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Sutherland Women’s Football Club want to continue showing younger generations that there is a space for them in the sport during the 2024 Highlands and Islands League season.
The new campaign is due to kick off on Sunday afternoon, with Sutherland going on the road to defending double winners Buckie.
Women’s football in general has grown massively over the last few years, including in the north of Scotland with the advent of competitions like the Highlands and Islands League.
Being able to showcase women’s football for youngsters, then, is a responsibility that is not lost on Sutherland, with the likes of Elysia Rattue-Young keen to show what is possible – both on a personal and sporting level.
“It’s really important to set that example to show them how important it is to turn up to training, and how that then affects game days,” she said.
“It also shows them that they should still enjoy it, no matter how high in the game you want to go.
“The most important thing is that you don’t fall out of love with football, and we do that by having a nice team bond and setting that example for them.
“We’re looking to get the juniors a lot more funding to get that seamless transition from juniors all the way up to the women’s team so that it can keep progressing.
“There maybe hasn’t been the transition there just yet, but some of the juniors are still only nine or 10 years old so they still have a few more years to wait.
“The fact that there are so many juniors already means that it will keep growing going forward. There were a lot of girls that joined last year who are just on the cusp of women’s football, so it’s all very positive.”
As far as the senior team are concerned for 2024, though, they are hoping for a successful season with challenges for silverware across league and cup.
“We have a really strong squad this season with players coming back from injuries and those who were out with maternity last season, so we have a lot of depth in our squad,” Rattue-Young added.
“We had a very successful end to last season, and we were starting to get into a good rhythm. Now with the additional players back, we have to build on that.
“We’re hoping for a good run in the cup again, and hopefully a high position in the league as well. We definitely want to be in the mix for trophies.
“I would say we are in a stronger place to do that this year with all the players coming back.
“The league has massively changed over the last few years with different clubs coming into it now.
“There are more teams, the fixtures’ structure is a little bit better too, so there has been a big improvement both in the organisation side of things and also in the standard of football.
“For us, we’ve been able to get new players coming in, younger players as well, that gel into the team which is really good.”
