As the 2016 Women’s Super League football season kicks-off tonight, anchoring the Manchester City midfield in their clash with Notts County, will be a stark reminder that the Royal Blues loss is very much the Sky Blues gain.
Fulwell-born Jill Scott was a talented Middle-Distance runner around the turn of the century, and in early 2000 the Monkwearmouth schoolgirl became the first female Sunderland Harrier to win a North of England title when she took the Under-13 Cross-Country crown at South Shields. Scott went on to add the Northern 1500 title to her collection, and even won the Junior Great North Run before being faced with the dilemma of having to choose between football and athletics in furthering her sporting career.
Unfortunately for the Harriers, Jill chose the round-ball game however it turned out to be a wise decision as she has gone on to enjoy a stellar career at Sunderland, Everton and now City, amassing more than 100 England caps along the way, including a pivotal role in the team that finished third in the 2015 Women’s FIFA World Cup.
Scott also represented Great Britain at the London Olympics in 2012, and a showed that it could have been a GB track vest and not the football shirt that she wore that year when making an impromptu appearance at the Penshaw Hill Races in 2005, not long after her 18th birthday. Despite not having raced competitively for more than two years, Scott led the field through halfway and took the ‘prime’ prize for the first runner to reach the monument on the opening lap. Although she faded in the closing stages, Jill held on for third place, but any hopes of a return to her first love were dashed when she claimed “The Penshaw Race was just a one-off, I did no training for it, but I enjoyed the change. It was nice to meet up with the Harriers again and lots of them asked how I was doing.”
Jill’s early athletics success, and subsequent standout career in football, shows that there is latent talent amongst the girls of Wearside, and that hard work can bring this to the fore and create success. Many of the current crop of youngsters are beginning to prove that very point and moving forward the girls section, if handled correctly, represents a huge opportunity for the club.