KIM LITTLE INTERVIEW
There aren’t many Scottish footballers plying their trade in two different continents at the moment.
But, there again, Kim Little has always blazed her own trail and racked up the air miles with the attitude that genius is an infinite capacity for taking planes.
The 25-year-old Aberdonian, who launched her career at Buchan Girls, recently signed for Melbourne City in the Australian W-League and applies the same skill and commitment to her new role as when she helped Scotland thrash Macedonia 10-0 in a European Championship qualifying match at the end of 2015.
Kim, who has already amassed 113 international caps, will spend the next three months in Melbourne before rejoining the United Nations squad at Seattle Reign in the National Women’s Super League. And she has no doubt her “Have passport, will travel” philosophy is helping her country take strides forward.
Kim said: “It has been paramount to our development that so many of the Scottish girls are now playing in professional and semi-professional leagues, whether it is in England, or the US, or in Europe or Australia.
“It gives us the chance to train full time, to fling ourselves into football 100%, and you can see the signs of progress which we are making.
“Sometimes, it does get tiring when you have to come all the way from Australia to join the rest of the squad, but you never complain about being picked for your country.
“The standard of the W-League isn’t quite as high as it is in America, but the quality is rising all the time, the fan numbers are going the same way, and it’s a fantastic opportunity to be playing in two different places, thousands of miles apart.
“It also means that I can finish the season in Melbourne before getting back to Seattle for their new campaign, which runs from March to October. It was my choice to do this and I’m enjoying every minute of it”.
Kim has been part of the Scotland line-up which has thus far scored 24 goals in four matches against Slovenia, Belarus and Macedonia. But there’s no trace of smugness or complacency in her make-up. Instead, befitting the individual who became the first-ever recipient of the Professional Football Association’s “Woman Player of the Year” in 2013, she thinks her compatriots have to keep striving to climb the rankings.
As Kim said: “We’ve made a good start to the Euro Qualifiers, but we can’t get ahead of ourselves. Yes, we’ve managed some big wins, but we were expected to win these games, so the real test will come when we tackle Iceland this year.
“We’re confident in how we are playing, and there is a terrific spirit among the girls, but, to be honest, we’ve only achieved what we thought we would do at this stage. We have to kick on from here in 2016.”
This is somebody who has never lost touch with her roots, not since the early days when she beat the boys as one of the “Mintlaw Miracles” at a skills tournament in Aberdeen. But Kim can see at least some benefit from spending the winter in Oz which has nothing to do with football.As she said: “I’ve heard there could be barbecues on the beach, so that will be something different and something a bit warmer than usual.”
She might be called Little. But there is nothing small about the ambitions of this special north-east talent.
Kim Little has done a fantastic job for the Scottish game in the last 10-15 years. She used to embarrass the boys until she was told she couldn’t play in mixed teams any more. But she is a great ambassador for football.