Boroughmuir girls do South-East region proud in National Finals

The team's success at Stenhousemuir's Ochilview, where the Capital school's S1-3 select team scored ten goals in just three outings, casts an ever-brighter light on the efforts of those involved in girls' football at Boroughmuir.

Manager Derek Nelson and assistant Laura Thomson saw their side dealt the toughest possible group draw in a competition that featured half a dozen sides from Scotland's six sporting regions. Boroughmuir, who won the right to represent the South-East after winning local and regional qualifying matches, surrendered a two-goal lead to draw with eventual winners Greenwood, of Ayrshire, then let a 1-0 advantage slip during a loss to crack Lewis side Back School.

Their excitement perhaps tinged by pre-match nerves, the Edinburgh girls themselves provided the entertainment for the crowd prior to their opening fixture against Greenwood, performing a perfectly in-sync battle cry as they rose from their huddle before the chirpy Boroughmuir No.?4, Sarah Findlay, bravely led her own light-hearted cheerleading routine to rouse her team mates.

Such antics may not be commonplace at Ochilview but seemed to do the trick for the girls in green, who raced into a 2-0 lead against a Greenwood side fresh from beating Back 1-0 in the opening match.

Findlay, ever the inspiration, saw her strike from 12 yards squirm into the bottom left-hand corner to break the deadlock, then Erin Cant's effort flew through the Greenwood goalkeeper's legs to make it two.

At the other end, Boroughmuir goalkeeper Lucy Cullen was in inspired form, touching a high shot by Erin Cuthbert over the bar, before diving full stretch to her left to deny Dana Baird, then blocking Rebecca Wyper's point-blank effort. Cuthbert did eventually beat her nemesis with a close-range finish to make it 2-1, and thought for a moment she had equalised with a thundering drive before Cullen spectacularly tipped the ball away.

In a heartbreaking denouement for the battling Boroughmuir side, the effervescent Cuthbert beat Cullen with the last kick of the game as Greenwood's concerted pressure paid off. "It was incredibly frustrating for us, having been 2-0 up against the team who went on to win it, then 1-0 up in the second game," said coach Nelson. "We just lost concentration and didn't click in the first two games - you could see in the third game what we were capable of."

A similar late collapse befell Boroughmuir in their match against Back. The impressive Edinburgh No.?7 Cailin Michie swept a half-volley from 15 yards low under the island side's goalkeeper Annmarie Macdonald to hand her side the lead, but Isabelle Bain levelled matters for the northerners. With two groups of three playing for an immediate place in a final and two play-offs (to decide on who finished third and fourth, and fifth and sixth), Boroughmuir were still, at least, on course for a shot at a third-place finish. Another killer blow in the dying seconds, though, was to prove their undoing, as Back's Leanne Macdonald showed great tenacity to race through and slide the ball under Cullen.

In the fifth-place decider, Wallace High School, who had lost out to Monifieth and Vale of Leven, faced the wrath of a frustrated and fired-up Boroughmuir, who exorcised the pain of snatching only a single draw from two games they had controlled by beating their Stirling counterparts 7-0.

Mhairi Dunnet's drive from the right opened the scoring, and Cant coolly added a second with a placed shot into the right-hand corner. Michie's freekick from the left rattled into the net, and Cant's long-range strike made it four. Dunnet then played in Findlay, who bagged her second goal of the tournament in emphatic style. Cant then completed her hat-trick by converting Dunnet's cross from the right, and Findlay then concluded her side's tally of seven.

Being part of a tournament recognising the top teams in regional girls' football should be ample consolation for the Boroughmuir side, who finished top of the pile among their local rivals before beating St Augustine's and Queensferry High School to a place at the finals. Their manager Nelson said: "The positives were that they got to the finals in the first place, that it was so close, and that they gelled as a squad. There were some excellent individual performances, and some girls really rose to the occasion."

Nelson, who helped run primary school football at Bruntsfield for seven years, is delighted with the progress made in the two years that girls football has run at Boroughmuir, which now fields three teams.

"We get 16-20 girls from S1-3 to training. It's about seeing the enthusiasm of the players, and supporting and encouraging it. We're providing a structure for them throughout school to practise their skills.

Boroughmuir Girls under-14: Lucy Cullen, Vanessa Inman, Kirsty Hollow, Sarah Findlay, Hannah Gallagher, Mhairi Dunnet, Cailin Michie, Jesse Wilson, Erin Cant, Jenny Stevenson.