'I went along to support Scotland. I ended up making my debut'

Sarah Crilly was pulled out of the stand at Dunfermline's East End Park to take her international bow - and ended up on the scoresheet

Sarah Crilly is the current academy manager at Glasgow City, the trailblazing women’s football club founded in 1998. Sarah wore the orange and black of City as a player and also represented Scotland on five occasions. Here, she breaks down one of the most extraordinary international debuts of all time…

By Sarah Crilly

Some parents of the young players at the Glasgow City academy know I used to play football. Some of the older kids will have seen photos of me kitted out in orange and black, or heard me share memories with members of the current squad.

However, I’m not sure many know I played for Scotland.

Even fewer will know the events that led to me making my debut for the women’s national side one Thursday afternoon at East End Park 12 years ago.

Football has always been a part of my life. My dad played football; my sister was less interested. The back gardens and public parks of Carluke may not immediately conjure up images of a La Masia-like schooling in the beautiful game, but it was where I learned to play the sport I loved.

My first kit was a Liverpool one, or at least that’s what a photo of me standing proudly wearing it one Christmas tells me. Why Liverpool? Nobody has ever been able to tell me. One year I asked for Barbie goalposts; I wasn’t into Barbie, so I have no idea where that came from either! I don’t think such a product even existed, but my parents made the magic happen by decorating a tiny set of goals with Barbie stickers.

It wasn’t long before I was playing football with the boys. Physical differences were made starker by my diminutive stature (even now, I barely reach 5 ft on a good day) but that rough and tumble helped me make it as a player. It’s something I believe the current generation miss, although my Dad would strongly disagree. He was, and always has been, my biggest fan and he was delighted when his 12-year-old girl made the move to Hamilton Accies as I began to make my way in the women’s game.

Sarah scoring for Glasgow City in the 2016 Champions League

Soon, I found myself involved at international level although my first try-out didn’t quite go to plan. An administrative error meant that when I turned up for an under-15s training camp I was listed as a centre-half. Fortunately, a young Jen Beattie, never shy in coming forward, pointed out the folly of putting a petite attacker at the heart of the defence and I was quickly demoted to the bench. I only ended up playing 10 minutes that day, but the coaches felt like they had seen enough and I started to feature regularly in youth camps.

Travelling the world with your pals and playing football was a wonderful experience. I moved onto the fringes of the senior squad and in the lead-up to a friendly against Norway in 2012, myself and a few others had been drafted in to help the first team train. It’s a rite of passage that many young players go through, and one that is accompanied by the knowledge that you won’t be playing. Or so I thought.

I almost never turned up. Lying in bed after a post-training shower, I decided to tackle the mountain of university work I had to do. It was only when Emily Thomson, one of the other girls, came into my room did I get talked into making the journey for a game that would end up being my Scotland debut.

I watched the entire first half from the stands. The match was played behind closed doors and the mood was relaxed as we popped in for a half-time cup of tea. Thankfully, I opted against having a pie as it may have come straight back up given what was about to follow.

From the first half ending until me making my way down from the stands and onto the pitch, no more than 25 minutes had passed.

Kate Cooper, now head coach at St Mirren, was the Scotland team administrator at the time. From the sidelines, she called up: “Is Sarah there?”

“Aye, I’m here,” I replied.

“Can you come down?” I thought it was a bit strange but headed down. “Have you got your boots with you?” Kate continued. “We need you to sit on the bench. A few of the girls have been hit with a sickness bug. We thought that they would be okay, but they’re not.”

I couldn’t quite believe what was happening and no, I didn’t have my boots – or my kit! However, I was assured that despite this, I would be allowed to play. In the dressing room, I borrowed Rachel Corsie’s strip. Rachel, now Scotland captain and an emerging star at the time, is much taller than me so the jersey hung down to my knees. Next, I borrowed a pair of Christie Murray’s boots. These were two sizes too large, an issue remedied by a couple of pairs of socks. As I wiggled my toes, I could feel they were nowhere near the end of the boots. I can’t imagine what I must have looked like, but I do remember laughing.

Sarah borrowed current Scotland captain Rachel Corsie’s oversized Scotland top

I had just sat on the bench when Tommy Craig, the sports scientist at the time, told me to warm up. I obeyed, although I still had no expectation of playing. Warming up is just what footballers do when they’re on the bench, I thought. A couple of hamstring kicks later and Anna Signeul, the Scotland boss, was calling for me; “I think you’re going on,” said Tommy.

“Are you kidding me?” was my reply.

My stomach churning, I started jogging back to the bench. Emily, Chloe (Arthur) and Heather (Richards), the players I had come along with, looked on in disbelief. I slipped on a pair of shin pads, which I assume also belonged to Christie, because she was the only player even remotely close to my size. I remember that my hands were trembling as I tried to get them taped up and tucked into my socks. I knew Tommy quite well by this point and he must have realised that I was nervous. He took my hand and said, “Calm down, you’ll be fine.” I instantly relaxed.

Two minutes later, on I went. Twenty minutes later, Christie (I think) whipped in a cross ball. I made a front-post run and scored my first goal for Scotland to make it 2-2. My reaction was disbelief, joy… and hilarity! How could this be happening, I thought, as my teammates surrounded me, sharing the most surreal of moments.

It was all such a blur that I can’t remember much else of what occurred. The game finished 2-2. I’d started it in the stands, come on and then scored on my Scotland debut. It was a crazy, crazy day and obviously it blew up a bit.

My phone was going mental. The One Show wanted me to appear on their couch, the newspapers got their headlines and someone from America got in touch wanting to make a film.

People were even knocking my door asking for interviews, which I thought was taking things too far. At the time, the manner of how my debut came about probably didn’t seem very professional, yet I was very serious about my football. Looking back, that was just where the women’s game was at the time.

My one small regret is that my family weren’t there to witness it, especially my dad, who had always supported me, be it in Bulgaria or Aberdeen. Emily had phoned him to let him know what was happening, but there was nothing he could have done as it all happened so quickly. To this day, he’s never seen me play for Scotland and, to the best of my knowledge, footage of my goal that day doesn’t exist for him to see.

My international career would be short but eclectic. I would play in a friendly away to Serbia before I received my first official cap (since set within a Perspex box by my brother-in-law), playing in a World qualifier against Poland just over a year later. My last appearances for Scotland came in Brazil, on a trip I’ll never forget. We trained on the indoor court of a fire station and were welcomed into gated communities flanked by some of the poorest areas I had ever seen. A group of us got lost in the rainforest for hours searching for waterfalls before playing in front of 30,000 spectators in a 4-3 defeat to Chile, during which I scored a screamer.

My last game for Scotland, against Canada, lasted the length of a goal-kick. I had started to have issues with my knee, but Anna decided I was to go on as a substitute. However, the ball just would not go out of play. When it eventually did, I had only just run on before the goal-kick from Gemma Fay was swiftly greeted with the final whistle. Anna was very apologetic but I laughed it off – it was just another story to tell.

Five caps, two goals. That was me. My knee issues kept me out of football for nearly two-and-a-half years, and by the time I returned, women’s football had moved on significantly. I played for a few more years at club level before retiring at the grand old age of 28.

I had been part of the National Performance School at the University of Stirling, and the SFA central offices were nearby. One day, I was asked to help deliver youth tournaments. I was only 18 at the time, but I absolutely loved it, and during the later stages of my career I became more involved with the behind-the-scenes aspects of football. I was at Scottish Women’s Football, helping run the league competitions before working for the SFA and then being seconded to UEFA to help run the Women’s U19 European Championships in 2019. To this day, I love getting to see what goes into organising a tournament.

Eventually, though, it felt as though a career in football had passed me by and I trained to be a police officer (I would later find out that my parents hated the idea of their tiny daughter chasing down criminals through the streets of Glasgow). Then, the day before I was set to start as an officer of the law, Carol Anne Stewart (Cas), one of the founders of Glasgow City, contacted me.

“Do you want to come and work for us?” she asked. “Our academy manager is leaving, so do you fancy taking up the role?”

What Cas and Laura (Montgomery) had done with Glasgow City was incredible, and as a former player it felt like a complete no-brainer I couldn’t believe my luck. I was getting the opportunity to come back to a club that I love just when I thought the chance had passed me by.

At the time, I didn’t know too much about the youth game and there was plenty for me to get my head around. Parents evenings, working regularly with young players, evolving coaching standards, venue booking – the list was endless, but the excitement I felt to be involved in football again meant I loved every minute. I still do, even on those days when difficult decisions have to be made.

As the women’s game has grown, so has the competitive nature of it at all levels. What’s important to me now is to show that if you don’t make it on the pitch, you still can off it. The Glasgow City academy has hundreds of girls playing every week, but the reality is only a very small percentage of them will make it to the top.

There are now so many women involved in football, and not just in the women’s game. Showing kids that you can still be involved in football even if things don’t work out on the pitch is a huge incentive for me. It’s so important to continue that push for representation as opportunities grow; and the great thing now is that even if you do pursue those careers as a coach, referee, tournament administrator or something else you can still play the game, too. It’s what drives me today.

I hope people reading this understand that mine is just one story amongst hundreds, maybe even thousands. There are moments I look back on and laugh at, but I am also proud that the achievements of everyone involved in the women’s game mean that it is now unthinkable that a player would make their Scotland debut in the manner I did. We now have a standard of coaching, psychology, sports science, analysis, nutrition and technology that a younger me could never have dreamed of.

If you are a young player reading this, grab your opportunities when you get them, because so many women fought, and are still fighting, for what we have today. You have read my story. Now go and write your own.