It was unbelievable, what we managed to do.

All these interviews should have happened years ago. It shouldn’t have taken all this time to be recognised. All the people who ran these football teams, most of them mums and dads of the players, worked so hard with no funding or organisation. And all the brilliant girls I worked with from 1961 right through to 1993… It’s an honour to tell my story, but if it hadn’t been for them, I wouldn’t have had a story at all.

I first discovered football in 1958.

I didn’t know anything about football at the time, but seemingly there was a World Cup that year.

As a kid, I used to run around with the boys. We were down the swing park one day and one of the lads came along with a football. I got in the line-up to be chosen for a team and I was told in no uncertain manner:

Elsie, lasses cannot play football.

I was astounded. I genuinely believed girls couldn’t play football because of some impediment or something. But I stood my ground and got a game. That was the start of it.

I first played football by fluke.

My mother was the coach of a local netball team. The head of the council took her to one side and said: “Betty, there’s a women’s football team in East Kilbride who’ve got in touch and would like to come and play against your team.” My Mum just looked at him; “but I haven’t got a team!”

He assured her the netball girls would do. It was a charity match to raise funds for Ethiopia, so we were really up for it.

My mum, myself and my two aunties made up the defence of what became Stewarton Thistle Ladies Football Club, along with the netball girls. We had a couple of kickabouts with my uncle, who tried his best to train us.

Women in Scotland were expected to be at the kitchen sink.

They did the housework and looked after the family. The man came first. We wanted to play a man’s game, which was why people were so derogatory about us.

We had an awful lot of obstacles to overcome. We didn’t even know women were banned from playing football until we tried to book a pitch. But they couldn’t stop us from playing on a Sunday.

Nothing happened on a Sabbath day back then. The pitches were all lying silent, so we could just go on and play without needing to change, (as we weren’t allowed to use the facilities).

Every Sunday I’d go to church, hurry home straight after, get changed into my kit and pick up my bag of sawdust (for the ground if it had been raining the night before), and the nets. It was unheard of for women to be kicking a ball about, but we managed fine.

Becoming Scotland manager tested my marriage.

In 1972, the Scottish Women’s FA came into being and I was asked to be the Secretary, organising the leagues and cups. I did that for a few years until my husband lost the plot with me! The night before a meeting in Edinburgh he said: “If you don’t resign your post as Secretary, I won’t be here when you come back.”

So, I resigned as Secretary. The next point on the agenda was finding a new Scotland manager. The girls at the back of the hall, who I mainly knew from playing on opponent teams, shouted out: “We want Elsie!” I became the Scotland manager overnight.

When I told my husband what had happened, he just went into the other room without saying a word and watched TV. I loved him to bits, but I couldn’t pack in my football just because I was married. I had to be myself.

My proudest moment was carrying the FA Cup out at Wembley.

The captains of all the teams that had got through to the finals of the WFA Cup were invited to Wembley in 2021, on the 50^th anniversary of the first FA Cup Final.

I was standing in the tunnel with Lesley Lloyd, who was the Southampton captain we’d played against twice, and automatically we just reached out to one another and held hands.

After I finished coaching the Scotland women’s team, I set up under-9s to under-16s teams, which kept me 110% involved with football. The children were amazing. Standing in that tunnel, I felt as if all those girls were beside me. When I walked out onto the park, I was in bits!

Four years ago, I started up free buses to take children to Hampden Park.

I wanted children to experience what I had – shouting for their team under the floodlights. Seeing their faces full of excitement has been amazing. Half of them don’t know the words to the songs, but they mouth off anyway! It’s so uplifting.

The women’s game has such a following now. 

I watch the WSL and the standard of play is unbelievable. They’ve got fantastic coaches – the likes of Sarina Weigman and Emma Hayes – they’ve played football so they know the game inside and out.

We still need to encourage more grassroots opportunities. I feel like girls should play alongside boys until they’re 12 because the boys will do their best to upset a lassie in a park and the lasses will be desperate to prove they’re as good as the boys. It gives the girls’ game an edge.