Sunday will bring a unique moment for AFC Women manager Scott Booth when he makes the return to Petershill Park to take on his former club Glasgow City.
Now with the Dons, Booth won an abundance of silverware during his time down the road but the AFC Women boss is fully focussed on the task at hand this weekend.
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ON EMMA ILIOSKI
“It is always nice to get new players in just because it freshens things up. She’s a really nice girl that’s come into the club to work really hard and to try and win her place in the team and add competition to the squad. I think that she has the ability to be able to do that. Firstly, she’s going to fit into the group really well because she’s such a nice person and she was really hungry to play regularly and to contribute. And she wants to learn. They’re all good aspects of our personality.
“I just felt that she had something that right now we could do within the squad that’s just a little bit different to what we have. I think it was obvious that she’s played at a really good level for a few years. I’m just hoping that she can come in at Aberdeen and enjoy her football and hopefully hit the ground running. She looks ready for it. She’s been a pleasure to meet and to bring in at this point.
ON RETURNING TO PETERSHILL
“I think it will be a little bit weird for me to go to Petershill on Sunday. I mean, why wouldn’t it be? It is a club that I’ve been at twice now and Petershill has held some, amazing games for Glasgow City and myself when I was the coach there. But things are different now. I’m looking forward to being back at my old club with Aberdeen, and and we know it’s going to be a tough game. I know how good those players are and how good a squad they’ve got, and how difficult a match it’s going to be. We’re under no illusions that that’s not going to be the case. But for us it’s about this continuing the build of our squad and the way that we want to play. No one expects us to go down there and win against Glasgow City. We want to get out of the game what we need to get out of the game. And if that means by doing that that we can take something from the game, then great.
The thing about Glasgow City is they won’t come into the game feeling they’ve won the game before it starts. They just don’t play that way. And then they’re very professional, and that’s the same as us. We won’t go into that game thinking that we’re not going to get anything out of it.
We want to get points out of every single game we play, whether it’s the top six or the bottom six. It doesn’t really matter. But what is important for us is that we continue to build and get better and develop.”
ON A BUSY PERIOD
“It is a really tough period, really tough. I’m not going to lie. To go to play Glasgow City away and then to go back down a few days later to Glasgow and play Celtic away at Hamilton, so it’s even further away. And then we have a semi-final at the back of that in Edinburgh – so it is extremely tough, extremely tough. And no matter which club you were involved with, if you asked that question, they would all say exactly the same thing. It’s a very, very difficult program of games to go through, but it’s what we’ve been given. And we have to take it on the chin, and we have to make sure that these are important games for us.
We have said to the players they’ve got to be as professional as they can. They’ve got to rest when they need to rest. They’ve got to be able to make sure that nutrition is tip top, and they come into those three games in as good a shape as we can possibly be in.”
ON THE APPOINTMENT OF KATIE ROWSON
“It is really important for me that, it wasn’t just about bringing in an assistant coach. It was important that it was the right person for the way that I saw the role going forward. The way that the staffing is here in the women’s side, there are certain aspects of it that we need now. Maybe in a few years’ time, it will be slightly different, the balance within the staffing.
“But right now, being able to bring in Katie is amazing for us because she’s a very good coach, but she has other real strengths as well that will help us as a women’s program build going forward, she will help to process the needs that we’re going to have in the short, mid and long term as we go from primarily a part time club to potentially a hybrid, and then full time. That takes a lot of work and a lot of foresight, and I think that Katie will really help us with that.
“She has coached at a really good level. She more recently has been with Everton as an academy lead, and she did a very good job. We’ve got to know each other really well. And I just felt as soon as she became available, it was 100% the right person to bring in. So, I was just delighted that she was interested in the role and has now come on board.
“She knows Holly from her time at Everton. Macca raised a few eyebrows today when I let her know! I didn’t quite know what Macca said because I sometimes don’t quite understand Macca… It was nice that there’s that connection, isn’t it? It is amazing football. It’s a small world and it is same with me coming in and having Hannah, Emily and Niamh here. So I think it’s good that we can have that connection.
“She is coming into a club that’s ambitious and that I think is a really good time for her to come in and be able to be a real addition to what we need going forward.”
