LEANNE ROSS, the former Glasgow City and Scotland midfielder, was part of a generation who changed the landscape for female players in Scotland.

Now she has her sights set on doing the same as she steps into the coaching arena. 

With 133 caps, six Women’s Premier League Cups and seven Scottish Cup winners medals as well as a boast of quarter-final appearances in Champions League football, Ross retired as Scotland’s most decorated female player.  

And as she reflects on where the Scottish women’s game is now as to where it was when she took the first steps in her own career, she has cause to pause and appreciate how implausible it once seemed for any female athletes to earn a professional living from the female game.  

Last summer brought a life-changing decision as Ross was offered a full-time coaching role at City as well as with the national team, an offer that allowed her to leave her role as an Active Schools Co-ordinator to focus fully on football.  

“Never in a million years, when I started out in football, would I have considered that I could have pursued a career as a full-time coach,” she said. “The opportunities just weren’t there but you can see that it is changing now. It is so important for young women coming through to see that there is a legitimate pathway to becoming either a full-time footballer or a full-time coach. You need to see it. 

“I am not bitter about anything. The work that my generation put into the women’s game paved the way for how the game has grown. I love seeing and hearing about women earning full-time professional contracts. I am proud of the fact that I was part of the generation that put that in place.
“I am now in a position to help them learn and develop and the next step for me now is to be a role-model within my coaching role.” 

The 40-year-old former midfielder is well underway with the coaching education as she looks to complete her FIFA accredited badges. And if making the decision to step out of her comfort zone and into a full-time coaching role was daunting, it was nothing to the sense of apprehension she felt  when she walked onto a training pitch alongside experienced international male players. 

It is why she believes that in order to continue increasing the numbers of female coaches, that offering scope to work towards coaching badges could benefit from female-only sessions. The latest Scottish FA stats reveal that since May 2021 there have been 662 new female coach attendees on Level 1 courses, a significant rise from the yearly average of 471. Furthermore, female participation on Level 1 courses is up 41%.

“I do think there would be a benefit to having all-female coaching sessions,” she said. ”I have been doing my ‘A’ license recently and my first week of coaching practice was last week and it was only myself and one other female who were on. 

“Jonny Hayes, for example, was on the course, so it is someone still playing at the top level. It was great to work and learn alongside him but even for someone like that it is a totally different ball game when you are running the course. Steven Naismith, Jamie Hamill and Darryl Duffy were all on it too. 

“It is intimidating because you have players in there who have been involved in the male professional game and who have played at a very high level. I have got to go in and take part in a training session and take them in coaching sessions.  

“Delivering to an all-male group is very different to working with a female group. They move the ball faster, they can play the ball longer and I can do things with that group that I possible wouldn’t do within my own environment. 

“But I think it is important that I need to be learning in the environment that I am going to be coaching in so that it is relevant.”

It has been a different experience this season for Ross as she has had to watch from the sidelines as Rangers look set to topple Glasgow City’s long-held dynasty.

City are two points behind with Rangers still holding a game in hand as the campaign moves into its final stages.

“I am also on the other side of it now but it is the same role in terms of pushing people to get the best out of them.

“There has always been a challenge. It is different because we are chasing.

“We will keep that going until the very end and keep asking questions.”  

In 2019, Shoosmiths, a UK-wide law firm, signed a four-year deal with the Scottish FA focused on supporting the training of 20 new referees and 200 new coaches in women’s youth and senior football by 2023.