Girl power

By IAIN KING

Bethesda, Maryland, USA, November 9, 2018

EDDIE WOLECKI BLACK has opened my eyes to so much in the game we both love.

The minute details and the all-encompassing obsession of coaching, the structuring of a training session.

He's a mate not a mentor, the new Celtic Women's team boss just happens to be one helluva coach.

Eddie has brought me so many fresh perspectives.

None more so than breaking down the prejudices and preconceptions that I confess existed within me when it came to coaching in the female game.

When I first met Eddie around a decade ago he was in charge at all-conquering Glasgow City.

Their story fascinated me, a friendship flourished, I signed Eddie as a groundbreaking columnist for the Scottish Sun in my former life as Head of Sport at Scotland's biggest selling newspaper.

Yet I admit I wasn't truly convinced on the merits of women's football until I was licking my wounds in the wake of my departure from East Kilbride FC.

The club had been my life for seven years, we'd just won the SFA Challenge Cup in our first season in the senior ranks but three days after the Final it was over. Boardroom politics. Sacked.

I choose not to dwell on that now, four years on so much has happened in my life and without the stinging hurt of that exit from my hometown club I wouldn't be living my dream in Canada now.

PEAKS AND TROUGHS...Eddie and I have both bounced back from some setbacks in life

When I needed my mates most Eddie was there and he asked me to come in to a City session, to work with the Champions League squad and see how they operated as a group.

Up close and personal the standard was unbelievable, technique, tempo, the girls were flying. With uneven numbers I joined in the game at the end and it was embarrassing. I was getting slaughtered 1 v 1 and quickly hid at sweeper.

I was never a stranger at City after that and would have taken up an offer to work with the U17s squad if it hadn't been for the lure of working with a Motherwell U15s Boys side that was packed with Scottish internationals.

This weekend, though, my mind has been dragged back to that summer's night in Glasgow when all my views on women's football were altered forever.

Tomorrow North Toronto Nitros U13 OPDL squad will take part in the Bethesda Premier Cup in a sodden Maryland.

It's 14 months now since I was handed the reins of this squad as part of the my work at the club and the improvement in a dedicated group of players has been thrilling to watch.

Four sessions a week, 30 league games unbeaten, a desire to learn and be coached in a system. They are a joy to work with.

Their respect for the coach and focus on their development never wavers, they are intense.

Yes, I'd love the girls to take more responsibility in the final third of the field, to have that swagger and bravado our U15 Boys carry with them like body armour. But that will come.

GIRLZ IN THE HOODZ...Alex Vokes, Samara Golger, Izzy Friedman, Maya Heitelman, Sammy Boone and keeper Vanessa Smith get ready for the American adventure

This weekend we will face some top American teams in our first big tournament as an Ontario Player Development League (OPDL) outfit.

For the 16 players travelling it's the start of a journey at the provincial level of the game in Canada, one I pray ends up in scholarships for them and all they dream of achieving with their soccer.

As part of our coaching restructure I now Head Coach one boys side and one girls side and I love the sense of balance that provides.

There is such a reward in coaching a girls side and seeing them put into practice a way of playing you believe in. They are blank canvasses when you start, so thirsty for knowledge.

I know now what Eddie was talking about all those years ago when I questioned him about why he had stayed in the women's game so long.

"Look mate," he said in that gruff Dundonian accent. "I don't see it like that, I don't think of them as women, they're fitbaw players and they want to learn."

He was right then and it resonates with me now. I know a lot of my coaching pals back home still carry the same reservations I had about coaching girls all those years ago.

I'd never force my views on them, I just know the truth for me. Being chosen to work with this team has made me a better coach.

I can teach in a different way, I can break down the technique, I can explain the formations better and I learn from the players and how they see things. Every day.

It makes me proud that on their afternoon off on a Saturday the bulk of this Nitros squad are now in the gym or the weights room with my colleague Sam Fujimagari at Totum Life Science.

They build their bodies to guard against injury in a football world where girls this age are EIGHT TIMES more likely to suffer a cruciate ligament injury than their male counterparts.

That's dedication - and that's why coaching these girls has been such a privilege.