That's a wrap on the SWPL I A Level Playing Field I Episode 23

On the final whistle of the season, A Level Playing Field signs off with a comprehensive look back at a thrilling Scottish Women’s Premier League campaign.

Cheryl Smith and Alison McConnell dive into the defining moments of the 2025/26 SWPL season. 

From the twists in the title race to the standout performers who lit up the league. 

With goals flying in across the campaign and records tumbling along the way, they reflect on what made this season one of the most competitive and compelling yet.

The duo break down the key storylines: the battle at the top and the fight for European places. 

Plus, Cheryl and Alison assess how the league is developing off the pitch and what it all means heading into next season.

It’s a full-time reflection on a landmark SWPL season and the perfect way to close out the campaign.

In partnership with Zenith Coins. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome back to Hello Playing Field. I'm Cheryl Smith joined by Alison McConnell for the last time this season. Alison, we're on episode.

SPEAKER_01 0:11

Long pause.

SPEAKER_00 0:13

You have a new partner. I'm going to announce them at the end. That was your surprise. No, no, you'll be you'll be back and I'll be back. But episode 23, which is actually crazy when you think we just started this sort of halfway through the season. Yeah, I'm excited.

SPEAKER_01 0:30

I think uh it's been a a fairly intriguing campaign. Again, I think lots to talk about, plenty of plenty of scope for us to have explored the last couple of months. Um and I'm sure when we come back uh at the start of August that there'll be plenty of intrigue too about a new campaign and and lots of talking points for us to explore, lots of changes I would expect. The initial impression I would glean just from events of the last few days is that it looks as though lots of clubs are are very, very keen on tightening budgets and we can maybe explore what that's gonna look like and what that's gonna mean across the the start of the new campaign. But for now, I think before we get to that point, it's probably important maybe just to reflect on what's been across recent months and and the finale that we had to the campaign.

SPEAKER_00 1:20

Yeah, we're gonna look back, have a we a round up of the season and some of the things that have happened before we get to that though. I just wanted to so I made a note of these and I'm just gonna read them out, so just bear with me. This is all the guests that we've had on, just to just to highlight um how good your contact book is. Our friends also. I'm just worried about if you know any more people because this list is quite long. So listen, no, listen, bear with me. It's Emma Lawton, Melissa Andreata twice, Grant Scott, Laura Montgomery, Rose Riley, Sarah Rind, Fiona McIntyre, Willie Collum, Leanne Crichton, Cara Henderson, Maria McInney, Robert Watson, Hugh MacDonald, Gary Holt, Lauren Davidson, Rachel Boyle, and Caroline Weir. Not bad, eh? Not too bad at all. Laura Montgomery, did you have Laura in there? Yeah, yeah, I got Laura in there. Had her in there. She was number felt four. Added to that as well. Obviously, we've got to do a little bit of coverage at the PFAs, independent to that. You've been on the stage presenting the award to Eva Olid.

SPEAKER_01 2:16

Yeah, I'd just like to say if anyone has seen those photographs, that I had about 20 minutes to get ready that night. Like I had actually been covering games and had to go home and get changed. And also, I I I do suspect that maybe someone had pulled out of presenting that award because I got quite late notice for it. It was like I was asked a week before, and I think maybe someone more high profile than me might have been asked and might not have been able to make it. But anyone presenting an award to Eva Olid is going to maybe look second best on that stage.

SPEAKER_00 2:48

That's my defence. First, I mean you don't need a defence, but first of all, that's shocking that you had a previous engagement to get before he turned up at that. And second of all, you're doing yourself a disservice. So you're the uh you are the look out the photos. Well, there's no one uh there's no one that knows more in a journalistic sense about women's football than you, so long time coming that you were up on that stage, and also Scottish Podcast Award nominee in the football category, which is pretty good, and as I'd said a couple of weeks ago, you have the cheek to be swanning off on holiday the day of that ceremony, so you will miss it. I know I'm actually picking it up on our behalf.

SPEAKER_01 3:21

I've quite got it about it, but I think uh I'm gonna blow our trumpet here, which is something I'm not particularly good at doing, but um I think it says a lot for us that we were sort of listed in that category when we were up against some pretty big hitters, so I think that's quite exciting. Um so hopefully it means that we're doing something right and creating content about the women's game that people enjoy listening to, that's quite informative and quite light, that's quite fun. And uh and if you like it, please share it, please stay with us because there's much more to come.

SPEAKER_00 3:52

Absolutely. Well, have a wee look back at the season that has just been a little domestic roundup. We'll start at the top with Hearts, the champions, so they get Champions League football from that. Um the weirdest final day, I think, in the last five years where they lost the derby, won the title, Eva had leaves the club, but we knew that was gonna happen. Obviously, the club had put it out a few weeks before. She's now been replaced by Andy Thompson, which we'll talk about. But news that we broke before anyone else. Yeah, I think that was you. You you broke that you broke that news. Uh give yourself a bit of a bit of credit there. Um we all talk about that. But hearts, overall, were they winners for you?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

I think so. I I think whoever wins a league is probably worthy winners, but you would have to say if you were in Rangers camp, you'd be kicking yourselves because all they had to do, I don't say all they had to do, but having been so out of it at one point and looked so adrift to to get yourself to the final game, I think to not go and win your game must be frustrating. And I know I've I've heard Leanne Crichton talk in the aftermath of it, and I've heard her say very publicly that the fact that the club were in the position they were after all the cuts over the summer, the lack of time that she had to prepare, that she would have taken it if she'd walked into the the the season and at the start of August realised the job and the magnitude of it, that she would have said if we took it to the last season, I would probably have been happy with it. However, when you actually get to that point, I think to have lost the game in the manner that they did so, and also the fact that Hibb beat hearts too, that it was in your hands. Had you won that game, you were winning the title. That's the fourth successive last day of the season that Rangers have lost out on a on a league.

SPEAKER_00 5:33

I think um I mean the thing about hearts losing though, you can obviously you can't predict that that's gonna happen. So the Rangers ones is interesting. I was thinking about it. I mean, we're looking at it from a a journalistic point of view, I guess, so you're analysing it. But for them, it's if you're half glass full or half class empty, because they got to both cup finals and took the league to the final day. Obviously, they lost both trophies and the the final day was they had a chance of winning it, it wasn't it wasn't totally on for them, although it it would have been in the circumstances there that you explained.

SPEAKER_01 6:03

It's not a 2-1 defeat or a 1-0 defeat, it was 6-0. Yeah. The outside perception, and I know Grant Scott had said that he actually watched the game back and he said it's not it was never a 6-nil game, but the perception from an external point of view is that there was a collapse.

SPEAKER_00 6:18

The score line, I think it it was an anomaly because Rangers don't lose 6-0, but that's not to detract from Glasgow City, who obviously played very well, probably frustratingly very well for Leanne Ross, who would have wondered where that was split games before that.

SPEAKER_01 6:32

Um I I think if you're a Glasgow if you're a Glasgow City fan, that's a question you would be asking too, like where was this kind of performance? And and you get a lot of it, I I suspect, and and it is just a suspicion. But my feeling would be that in the build-up to that week, Glasgow City would have been saying, hang on a minute, you know, we're we're not hosting a title party for someone else on our ground. Everyone is expecting that Rangers come here and win this game. Well, actually, we've got something to say about it. It was quite a statement for them to make, but even still, I think the manner of that defeat should resonate with Rangers.

SPEAKER_00 7:08

I think that's the thing that stands out, and that's probably you know, they they won't want that to define their season because they did they did get to two cup finals. What about Andy Thompson then? That was the news that you broke. So he's he was Leanne Crichton's assistant at Rangers and he was in there for a few years before then, but now he replaces Eva Olid. What um what do you think he's gonna bring to that job? Do you know much about his history?

SPEAKER_01 7:31

I think he's clearly wanting to go and manage and coach in his own right. He go and I suppose a a lot like what Leanne done this season, like stepping out Leanne Crichton, like of stepping out from from Glasgow City and and Motherwell and deciding that you want to go and do it on your own and uh and and put your own mark on a team. Lots of interesting things about it, primarily being of course that the reason that Eva Old has left is because the budget has been cut, so the first thing he's going to have to do is probably negotiate a new first team. I think a lot of those players will probably move on. There have been hints that the club could go back to a kind of hybrid part-time model again. Um, and of course, the fear would be that if one team starts to do that, you do wonder what the impact might be on the rest of the league of the domino effect of that. So I think his his first job will be to cope with the cuts that are coming, that we know are coming. Eva spoke um about it. Uh we know the circumstances around it. I think the the the chat was or the the suggestion was that the budget was going to be cut in half. So th there's there's a lot of work that you'll have to do primarily there in terms of putting together a team that he believes are are going to be capable of retaining a title. Now, I think when you look back, no one in the SWPL has retained a title across the last five years. Yeah. You go back and look at it, it's changed hands five times. Every season it's changed hands on the last day of the season. That competitiveness is something that we laud, enjoy. I think it it it it it's almost the unique selling point of the of the league is the fact it's so competitive. You do fear if it starts to lose quality. I think you can see that there has been a regression in quality across recent seasons. I think at some point we all have to speak about the dip in attendance, what it means, what what people can do, what clubs can do, individual marketing campaigns can do to try and attract more people in to support the game because you can i it already feels as though it's sliding back the way a wee bit, and and that would be a grave concern, I think.

SPEAKER_00 9:44

It's interesting the thing about you know no team retaining it in the last five years. I think you probably have to go way back to when Glasgow City were winning it year, year on year that they they would win it and win it again and win it again. It is interesting. People have heard people say it's you know the one of the most competitive leagues in Europe. Post. I think also there must be more. There's I think there's definitely more to look into than that and why why that does happen, why a team can't Celtic couldn't do it, Hibs haven't done it this year, Rangers didn't couldn't do it a few years ago, so it is interesting. We're not obviously at the time of the season where like you were saying, Andy Thompson's going to have to go in there and and build a squad and build his own squad, uh, with whatever whatever finances he's got. And um the clubs now start to put out their release lists or lists of players that are leaving. And Rangers had theirs out uh this week, and there were eight players I think on it, and obviously there was two notable ones, I think, for me, Camille Lafay, she's been there for two years, she's away in the in the big one, Mia Macaulay. Yeah. I have no knowledge of this, but you can only imagine that she who's gone on to Pastures now, possibly down south. Don't know if you've got any.

SPEAKER_01 10:54

I don't know where she's going, but I think there's absolutely no question that she's going into a bigger league. And I think when new when it came out that she was leaving, I was fairly stunned, and then when you see the the club obviously released the statements from everyone. So when you read the statements, it's quite clear that she's decided not to sign a new contract that she wants to go and uh and pursue new opportunities. Uh you would never deny anyone that chance because the money south of the border financially in terms of packages is out of this world compared to anything that's going to be an offer in the SWPL. You you would never want to stand in someone's way, but you also fear for the league too when there is a drain of talent leaving it, she's still a very young player, she's 20. What women's football hasn't got right yet and and needs to try and get right is this recycling of players and a player trading model where they are not going to go for for anything like the sums that you see in in the men's game. However, if you can bring in some kind of financial compensation for players that you're losing, young players that you are losing in order that you can sustain your own business and you can sustain the financial side of your own model, it has to be what you're what you're looking at, it has to be what you're doing.

SPEAKER_00 12:16

Hibs, obviously, like we said, they fail to fail to defend the title, they finish fourth. I think you've got to caveat it though by the fact that obviously they lost Grant Scott in January to Celtic and Joel Murray went in there obviously just in the natural replacement and a really good coach, so but they'll be disappointed that they weren't able to finish at least higher up.

SPEAKER_01 12:37

I thought what was really interesting about Hibbs was the form that they showed post-sput. I thought their their form in the SPLAT was was very good. I think over the the course of the campaign they will be irked at points where it got away from them. I think Joelle Murray has made a difference. I think the results have been very good under her tutorial, and I think she'll be excited now to go and get a full pre-season with the players, and maybe there'll be some changes I would expect, and then maybe put her own stamp on that team because it's obviously very difficult when you're going in halfway through a season and straight into games as they were. She was in, and then a couple of days later they had the Scottish Cup tie ironically enough against Grand Scott Celtic. But she'll want to go and put her own stamp on that, and I think you can see the early evidence would suggest that Hibbs will be in amongst it next season.

SPEAKER_00 13:34

What about Celtic? Then they finished fifth. You were there the weekend when they lifted the Scottish Cup, they beat Rangers in that game ten players for for quite a lot of the second half. I don't know if you and I are in bad women or something, but we interviewed Emma Lochton and I'm asking her about wouldn't it be would you love to score in a cup final because you've scored all the way along and then she gets a second yellow card and gets first of her career? Is it well first red card of her career? She was good. She would be relieved. I think she's probably the most relieved person in Hamden that they managed to hold on and find that out.

SPEAKER_01 14:05

You could see she was actually quite emotional after the game. I thought it was her first piece of silverware too. And I think at that point when she was sent off, it was I think 58th, 59th minute, if memory serves me correctly, two fouls in in very quick succession. And um at that stage I felt as though Celtic were really under the kosh from Rangers. You felt as though a goal was coming. In actual fact, when they went to the 10 and they obviously got deeper again for a while, they they actually seemed to exert a wee bit of more control, oddly enough, within the game. I think they'd really restricted Rangers when you go back and look at it. Although Rangers had a ton of possession and you'd say they probably controlled the the game in the second period, they didn't really create too many clear-cut chances. Do you think it was a penalty? The one at the end with Mia Macaulay? I don't. I've watched it quite a few times. I really don't. I think Claire Walsh, I think the her studs get a touch on the ball to take it away from Mia McCauley. I don't think it's a penalty. Do you?

SPEAKER_00 15:08

No, I agree.

SPEAKER_01 15:08

I don't think it was a I think she I think the touch is slight, but she definitely gets a touch on the ball. Take the ball away from her, and you can see Mia McCauley's reaction. If you if you watch the video back, she she gets up and she says she tripped me up. Uh huh. You can see why she thinks that because she'll have felt the content. Um but I definitely think she got the t I think that the studs got a flick of the ball just to take it away.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

Yeah, it was so late in the game as well. That kind of adds like a lot of emotion around these things sometimes. I thought Leanne Crichton spoke really well about it though. I think if she'd have thought that was a clear-cut penalty, she would have she would have said so. But she said it was one of those ones that could be 50-50, but you know, it's just it is what it is, and there's no point afterwards. And also the game had var, so yeah. You expect, as she said, that they would pick up on that if there was anything, if there was anything there. So I think we had said to or I had said to him a lot, and if Celtic were to win this trophy, but obviously finish where they are in the table, you would say it was somewhat of a success. You've got you've got to say that if you've picked up one of the three trophies. But Grant Scott will be he will be really looking to revamp that team, you would think, in the summer to the best of his ability and make it a team in his image and his his style, I suppose, and go go again next season. They've got to do much better in the league.

SPEAKER_01 16:23

It's two seasons that you would say that the league campaign has been desperately poor. I think they would expect to be challenging more and be up there, they were well out of it early on. They were never in the mix, really, they'd fallen away from it really across the last month of the campaign. I think you've got to be competitive and try and go and keep pace. I I I'm interested to see what the Scottish Cup win does. I think it offers a bit of a reprieve in some ways. It also, of course, ends that long sequence of results against Rangers. That was the 12th game where they got the the win. I think probably I'll be relieved not to have to ask that question of anyone again. I mean, they'll probably relieve not to hear it from me. I'm sure they will be relieved not to hear it, but you know that the longer that goes, the more notable it becomes, and also the it becomes a whole narrative around that game.

SPEAKER_00 17:23

I think it brought it gets brought up every game.

SPEAKER_01 17:25

And I think recent games were fairly emphatic wins for Rangers at 3-0 game. Katie Wilkinson scored a heart trick, then the four-nil game at Broadwood. And um I think you could see the there was a a difference in in quality. I think you could sense it was a lack of belief within the the Celtic players at that point. So I think it's I think beating Rangers and beating them in a cup final is important. I think also when you look at the run Celtic had to get to the final, they had to play every they had to play all the big teams round about them. They had a tough journey to get there. What that does for them in terms of the conviction within the squad is interesting, and I I would guess it's about saying you have to now do that over the course of a campaign consistently, it can't be isolated one-off results, you now have to produce that on a consistent basis. I think it possibly buys a bit of time for Grant Scott too that you've gone in and you've delivered a first trophy within five, six months. Uh, it gives you a wee bit of scope to to breathe and to start preparing now for a new season. Again, I would expect that there'll be quite a lot of changes there too.

SPEAKER_00 18:34

Yeah, well there's going to need to be, we'll see uh probably over the next days and weeks what the what certainly what the outs are at Celtic when they usually release that list and see who's who's not going to be returning for the new season. He'll finish off in Partick Thistle then. Obviously, they were they made up the the last of the top six teams. Gary Holt's first season as manager in there as well. Done pretty well to get in get into that. And um interesting to see if he's if he's still there next season, and if he is, if they can build on that again. They don't want to be in the top six and be essentially canning for them, and they weren't, but they want to be able to make sure that they can build year on year and keep challenging the players to challenge themselves, I suppose.

SPEAKER_01 19:15

Absolutely. And I think this are a team who have punched above their weight across recent seasons, obviously. Under Brian Graham, they got to the League Cup final too. I think you've you've seen that they were disappointed last term that they just missed out on the top six place. I think it's difficult. I think when you look at the gulf between the top five and everyone else, it is tough. It's a tough league. And this season was particularly tough knowing the the new format in terms of relegation promotion, the new split. So you had six at the top and four at the bottom. Um I think it will it uh it is tough. You can see that there's a real chasm between the top five. What that now becomes as everyone prepares to make the cuts, and that it there is going to be belt tightening uh uh across the full league will be interesting.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah, and they'll have a friend of the podcast, a friend of ours, Cara Henderson. She'll be making a return. I think she's I think the last time we spoke to her, she said she was aiming for pre-season. She's it just seems like she's been out for such a long time. She was so unlucky that she got those two serious injuries back to back and then had to have two surgeries. But um she's she'll be back in the in the mix and she's missed a chunk of it. I I she's she's missed a whole phase of a manager.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

Yeah, she's missed 18 months of her career, and it it's enormous our feel for her. I think she's a fantastic young player, hugely exciting, great pace, good finisher, clever movement, so much to to offer a team. She will be desperate to get a strong pre-season, go back in and and pick up the pieces really of a career that's been put on hold for a year and a half, and that's a long time for your career to be missing. I think it takes a lot of mental fortitude to negotiate that kind of injury. Well, also, you have to say, still living a life, working, yeah, making a living, building a young career, taking the first steps on a career while trying to focus on this. So, yeah, I think we'll be caris cheerleaders for uh for across the next couple of months.

SPEAKER_00 21:20

No, she just she deserves um tremendous credit for how she's gone about it and um been able to you know keep going and like all the things you say, like it as like a change in job and trying to stabilise your career well. It must be so difficult when you are part of a club but you're not really part of it because you're not there every day, you're not in amongst the players and all those all those things that make you feel part of a team. It takes real strength to be able to keep positive, and she's done that really well. So hopefully uh we'll see her in the early part of the season and it'll be good to see her uh see her back on the pitch. I think we'll finish it up there in terms of the league, but I think that'll do is in terms of looking back in this the season it's just been. Just before we finish up though, just wanted to ask you if you've got if you've got one, what would you say was your favourite moment of the season?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Hmm. It's an interesting question. I think I would possibly point to Easter Road and that late Kathleen McGovern goal that rescued a point, if memory serves me correct, against Belgium, scored almost to I think was it the 97th minute or so? I think it was it was the night that your laptop was in fire.

SPEAKER_00 22:28

Yes. One of the nights your laptop was in fire.

SPEAKER_01 22:32

But uh yeah, so close to deadline is never entirely comfortable. But once I'd filed it, was my favourite favourite moment. I think it could be quite a pivotal goal when you look back and reflect on this campaign. And if they actually get to Brazil and make it to the World Cup, that goal when it came and at that point of the campaign, I think could be very important.

SPEAKER_00 22:55

I can't believe I mean that's that is that was a really good goal and a really important goal, but I can't believe you've picked that after how stressed you were. It just reminded me of it. I think I just left you to it when the when the whistle finally blew. So an hour later, just wandering through the bills if you start remembering. Murmuring to myself. No, you do it, uh you do it well. Well, the stress, I too stressed very well. You do. Um not since you're not going to ask me because I was uh I was waiting for you to ask me there, but my favourite moment of the season. Sorry, Cheryl. It's all the story of my life. My favourite uh my favourite moment of the season, not that anyone asked or cares, um is a I think is actually not on the pitch but off. I think starting this um this version of this podcast alongside yourself after having to kind of rise it rise it from the ashes, if you will, um was uh I think my favourite moment because we've been able to we've been able to go out, you know, on our own and down a road where we've been able to speak to so many interesting people about just so many different different things thanks to your your uh your contact book, which I had said at the start, I'm really worried that you're not gonna have any names left. You're gonna have to go and make some new pals, I think. Because uh always problematic for me. We've fair gone uh we've fair gone we've fair gone through it, but no, that has been um that has been very enjoyable and it has been a lot of hard work but worth it and the the reaction that we've had has been great as well. And also just wanted to say thank you to Nutmeg as well for jumping on board uh with us so quickly. It's been great to have them alongside us and look forward to working with them even more next season and a few other things in the pipeline as well, which will elevate us again and it's it's been good fun. And it's once we've had a wee rest, uh we'll we'll come back stronger. I'm not gonna totally go to sleep. If you keep an eye on the socials over the summer, there will be some things uh popping up and going out there just to keep it ticking over. But I think week to week we will uh take a little break, rejuvenate, you'll go on your holiday, only time planned holiday. I didn't know I was potentially going to be an award winner. I don't know. We need to do you need to remember now when award season is for next year. Make sure you don't book any holidays. And the podcast Oscars are yeah, exactly. Book any holidays, but no, uh it well deserved, and I'm sure you'll I'm sure you'll enjoy it when it comes round. But I think that's that's us for the season. So thank you. Thanks to all the guests that came on for the clubs and everyone that's shown a support, everyone that's listened and engaged. Thank you to Nutmeg, thank you to you as well for all your your work and everything that you've brought to the table. Uh and we will see you again next season. Thank you to you too, Cheryl.