Ross County entering the Scottish Women’s Football pyramid has been years in the making, says head coach Iain MacIver
Ross County Women are set to play their first game as part of the performance arm of Scottish Women’s Football this weekend – a moment head coach Iain MacIver has described as years in the making.
Having established themselves as a formidable youth outfit over a number of seasons, County are now stepping up to the SWF pyramid with a senior team for the first time.
Their campaign will kick off in the League Cup group stage, where their first game comes away at Huntly on Sunday afternoon.
For MacIver, who founded the club as Invergordon Girls when a group of his school pupils wanted to play formal football, it will be a proud marker of progress.
However, he insists the journey is not yet complete, with County ambitious to go as far as they possibly can in the women’s game.
“It’s been a long time coming,” he reasoned.
“When we first started the girls football in Invergordon six or seven years ago, it started as one group of girls playing at youth level.
“It has expanded more and more, going into partnership with Ross County, to the point where we now have 160 girls registered from five years old up to senior players.
“This was always the goal – not the end point, because we want to get into the top league in the country – but we always wanted to have a senior first team playing in the pyramid leagues.
“We’ve been working towards this for a number of years, and we tried to take it from the bottom up. With 160 girls, the foundations are there for this to be a long lasting team.”
County have had a senior team competing in the Highlands and Islands League, which sits in SWF’s recreational arm, this year in preparation for stepping up to the pyramid.
While providing a different aim to what they are going into, there has still be a high standard of player in the division, and MacIver feels it has been a good test of where they stand.
“It has been a good transitional stage to have a senior women’s team involved with a chance for some of the younger players to play,” he explained.
“The idea was always to retain the Highlands and Islands League squad as a transitional, development team for players coming through the under-16s or under-18s to impress and develop before moving into the first team, so it will be that step between the youth and the first team.
“It’s good for the younger ones to play against more physical players. There is a big difference between under-16s and adult football with the physicality and size of the players, so it has been good preparation for them.
“It would have been hard for the under-18 group to make that step up to the first team squad, but there is a talented group in there who are now ready to make that step.”
With the move into the pyramid will also come closer ties with County’s men’s team in Dingwall, with club chief executive Steven Ferguson already having laid out his vision for the future.
“With the launch of the women’s first team into the pyramid leagues, the club really want to bring things together and have the women’s team as part of the overall structure to help drive it forward,” MacIver added.
“They want to offer support and make sure the same provisions that are offered to the men will be offered to the women in the sports science and medical side of things.
“There are plans in place to really bring the women’s side under the structure of Ross County, which will be significant for the women’s side. A lot of these things are already in place at the club, so it will just be a case of bringing the women in.
“The players are obviously delighted with the plans and the backing from the club. It will make us a more professional outfit with an eye to reaching the top league in the country in the future.
“These structures put the building blocks in place for things to be achieved that couldn’t if we were run independently.
“Working with sports scientists and medical professionals, those are things we couldn’t offer without the backing of a Premiership club.”
