Exciting time to be involved with Ross County girls' and women – with players and coaches all aiming for the very top of Scottish football
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Women's football at Ross County will take a significant step forward next year with the introduction of two new senior teams.
A development team will enter the 2024 Highlands and Islands League, while the first team will take part in Scottish Women's Football's performance pathway, joining the regional SWFL leagues.
This is a step that has been a long time coming. Starting off as Invergordon Girls, the club joined forces with Ross County in 2019, and have since grown beyond anyone's wildest expectations.
Now, it is not uncommon to see more than 100 girls attending training. The current oldest age group side, the under-16s, have also already played other senior teams and competed well.
That has only fuelled confidence of what can be achieved by the Staggies – and quickly, if expectations are met.
"We want to take the club as far as we possibly can," head coach Iain MacIver explained.
"In the first year we enter that North League, a lot of people would probably look at it as a development year but we'll be looking to go up if possible.
"We've played the team that are currently sitting top a few weeks ago, and we did pretty well, so we'll be looking to do pretty well and get into the national leagues.
"I think all the players there have the ambition to go as far as they can – ideally with us, but they want to forge a career in football.
"A few years ago that wouldn't really have been a possibility for girls from here. Even going back a couple of decades in Scotland, it wouldn't have been physically possible, but now, they have ambitions and see professional players on TV so it's something for them to aspire to."
Those ambitions come through clearly by talking to the players themselves.
Sisters Kiera and Teagan Syrjanen both play for the club's under-16s, and have been part of the squads that took on senior teams elsewhere.
The Dingwall Academy pupils are in no doubt about where they want to go in football, and the impact that establishing senior teams at Ross County could have on their chances of being successful.
Kiera said: "It's just good for girls' football in general. Obviously men's football is huge, so I hope women's football keeps growing too.
"I want to play for Scotland or a high-end team in England. Maybe Rangers as well.
"We're playing friendlies against teams more well-known than us, which will make us well-known, and we've matched their standards so it shows that in the future we can be just as big.
"We're obviously starting a women's team, so we're building that pathway up to the top which wasn't always there. It's good for the club to have somewhere to go after you've finished with the under-16s."
Teagan explained: "We think about it for when we're older.
"One of my main goals is to play for Scotland, but I think I'd also like to play for Chelsea or a team in England, and I think that is realistic, because we're playing a few top teams already and have performed very well.
"When we first joined, we didn't really know what the future would look like for us, but now we know more and can see the pathway there.
"If new girls join, they know there's that pathway there and it's not just one team and then that's the end of it."
One of the things that will help Staggies talents reach those heights is greater integration between the women's club and the men's academy and senior side.
With plans in place for the new senior women's teams in 2024, that connection has recently taken a big step forward as County's head of professional academy Gary Warren has started to get involved in training sessions.
Even on first impressions, he has been very impressed – and with a young daughter Warren has every reason to take a vested interest in the fortunes of the women's side of the club.
"My main role now is to oversee a programme that will unite the girls and the boys together," Warren said.
"I've just recently had my first coaching session with the girls, and it was really good and really enjoyable. There's some great talent, and that's not just at one particular level – that's across the age groups.
"There is so much out there to offer – not just in the local area but also in Stornoway and the islands – it would be silly not to develop a programme that will help these girls flourish.
"It's so important. You look at how the game has developed and the academies that have been created down south and oversees, and we're in a position where we can try and do that.
"We can nurture and develop these girls. They've got a great set-up – when I was out there over 120 girls showed up in one night, which is incredible. These coaches give up their own time to help out, so it's important that we help to maximise the opportunity for everyone to flourish.
"Before you would look at the women's game and a lot of people wouldn't think it was at the same level, but you look at how much it has changed and how much the quality has improved in terms of technical, tactical and physical, and the game has improved so much.
"I have a little girl myself, and she loves her football, so it's great for me to see the game develop and hopefully one day she can follow in the current players' footsteps. If she can emulate some of these players now, she'll have a good upbringing in football and a good understanding.
"You feel the excitement just by turning up and watching them train. When you do that, you see the standards and that makes you think 'wow, this could be something really special'.
"It's important that we really now work together as a club and as a group to join forces and develop the programme as much as we can."
The commitment from the men's side of Ross County is absolute, and goes right to the top of the club.
Chief executive officer Steven Ferguson was at pains to hail the work that MacIver and Glenda Scobbie have done with the women's side over recent years, and is looking forward to seeing how an even more integrated set-up will progress in the future.
"We recognise how important it is for girls and women in this area, and we also recognise the part that we have to play as the senior club," Ferguson added.
"We are ready to make sure that we are completely joined up, and give them the opportunity and the support that they deserve.
"When this got off the ground many years ago now, it was essentially a partnership in name only, but the plan was always to make sure that year by year we had something that was sustainable and growing organically.
"We weren't trying to force or demand anything, and it has grown to this stage where it needs more and more input and support from the football club to make sure it's fully integrated.
"The most important thing is that it's sustainable so that we have a Ross County women's team in 10 years' time, and we have the solid foundations in place.
"It's so important to us as a football club that everybody is catered to whatever their level, and I'm really looking forward to see the young girls developing into young women that will go on to compete at a national level and represent this area and club. It's really exciting.
"There is definitely a buzz around girls' and women's football. As a football club and as an area, we are no different.
"I see girls who have played on a Saturday morning, and both them and the team they have played are in the stadium watching a first team game in the afternoon. That's what gives me a buzz – the fact that it's completely integrated across the women's and men's game, and everybody is enjoying both parts of it, to make it that one club.
"That's my goal, to very much be catering for absolutely everybody and inclusive for everyone. That's really important to us as a football club, and it's really exciting to think about the distance that we've come over the last four or five years – and we're only just scratching the surface.
"What we have in place are really solid foundations that will shape the next five years, and I think that's the bit that excites everybody."
