Football’s loss is athletics’ gain as Kirsty Law goes from strength to strength

Top discus thrower could have had an alternative sporting career but has no regrets about choosing track and field

Kirsty Law pictured competing at Hampden during the Glasgow 2014 Commonwealth Games. Picture: Bobby Gavin

Graeme Souness once described Scottish football as a playground for ‘hammer throwers’ in a (less-than-rare) fit of pique while Rangers manager. In the case of Kirsty Law, as it happens, he wasn’t far wrong.

Scotland’s best female discus thrower of her generation was a footballer in her teens with Inverness Ladies and twice received international call-ups from the SFA at U18 level.

Indeed, the presence of Shelley Kerr’s Class of 2019 at the Women’s World Cup in France last summer briefly had the Tartan Army regular indulging in wistful thinking and musing on ‘what might have been’.

One of Law’s Inverness team-mates all those years ago, Suzanne Grant, did indeed go on to play for Hibernian, Celtic, Arsenal and Scotland (105 caps) before retiring in 2017.

Duncan Shearer was involved in coaching that team and those who recall the Aberdeen and Scotland striker’s powerful shooting might feel it explains why the young keeper suffered more than once from a broken finger.

But, instead of nursing regrets, the zen of Zane (Duquemin, her coach) has guided Law to a happy place with the 33-year-old having put retirement on the back-burner three years ago.

Since then, Kirsty has represented GB and NI at the Berlin European Champs and won the British title at Senior level for the first time – to add to U17, U20 and U23 golds previously.

“I played football, basketball, hockey and swimming when I was growing up – I just loved sport,’ reflected Law in a special interview with Scottish Athletics. ‘But, at 17 or 18 I had to make a decision about football and athletics.

“I’d been playing in the Inverness Ladies team and had two call-ups for Scotland U18s around that time. I was a goalkeeper but I kept breaking my arm or finger or going over on my ankle in the football and obviously that wasn’t ideal as a thrower.

“Duncan Shearer used to take the training and sometimes I was in goals facing his shots! The twins Shelley and Suzanne Grant were in the team and both went on to play for Scotland.

“I love football but the team aspect maybe wasn’t quite for me whereas athletics was individual. I could not blame someone else, or the team, if it went wrong. I was better at discus, too, and I was chosen for Team Scotland for the Commonwealth Youth Games in Australia around that period, as well.

“So I quit football and put my full focus into throwing.

“Three years ago, after I briefly retired from athletics I joined a women’s team in Loughborough and enjoyed getting back into football.

“And when the Scotland team made the Women’s World Cup and went over to France last summer I did have a wee thought that it might have been me if I had stuck at it . . . but I’ve had great experiences in athletics, too, representing Scotland and GB and NI.”

There was a strong sense of irony then, maybe, in Hampden being the venue for the biggest moment in her athletics career.

“Glasgow 2014 and the Commonwealth Games was a big thing for me. I’ve said before it was the best experience of my life and I still say that.

“As a big football fan and member of the Tartan Army, I’d been to Hampden so often for internationals. So for me to get the chance to compete there was really special.

“I was throwing the night Eilidh Child (now Doyle) won her silver in the hurdles. Eilidh was going around the track with the Proclaimers blasting out and I was coming in the circle to throw – what a buzz that was.

“I was 30 at that time and it just came along at the right point in my career to keep me motivated and enjoying it, to be honest. Hampden and Glasgow 2014 brought the excitement back.

“I love competing for Scotland. We don’t get many chances and, outside of a Commonwealths every four years, there’s the Loughborough International where I’ve been a regular.

Scottish Athletics made me captain last year and I won my comp so it was a good day – Loughborough is my home circle anyway so I always like throwing there in an event.

“So the Loughborough International is a real favourite of mine. We compete as a team and, as it is early in the season (in usual circumstances), it can be a good marker for athletes and coaches for the season ahead. I do like pulling on that Scotland vest.”

Recent success was jeopardised in the winter of 2016-17, however, when Law fell out of love with the sport.

“At the end of 2016, I knew there was something wrong,’ said Kirsty, who works as a psychiatric nurse in a hospital in the Midlands.

“I got myself in a bad place and was in tears at one stage. And that is just not me – I’m normally a bubbly person. I thought I couldn’t do it (throwing) any more and took a couple of weeks off.

“I knew Zane Duquemin around Loughborough and I asked if I could come along and do bits and pieces with him. And then he would mention something – like the position of my left arm – and I started to enjoy throwing again. It took a few weeks but the love and the spark returned and I’ve not looked back since then.

“In many ways I do wish I’d met him earlier in my career. He is still an athlete himself and he just ‘gets’ athletes and how they think. Zane is also a nice and open guy who will ask for help or listen to an opinion from someone else. Not all coaches think that way. I tell him everything – he’s my friend now as well as my coach.

“He is in Doha so online coaching during lockdown isn’t anything different for us.

“My work are amazing with me – even though I do long shifts. They have given me time off for competitions, they will help with shift swaps and they let me do some gym work while I am there at the hospital.

“People usually retire when they are ready to but it is important not to have regrets. I’m so glad now that I didn’t.

“I spoke to my dad and said : ‘That is, I think I’m done with throwing now . . .’ And he just said to me: ‘Well, make sure you don’t regret that in a year or two . . .’

“He kept making the point that if you are too old and your body’s not fit enough then you do have to finish. But, if you are not, then there is that danger you will regret it if you don’t just try and clear the hurdle you are facing at that time.

“I won the British and Scottish champs last summer and those were great days – the ones you love in the sport.

“I will always compete at the Scottish Champs if I can and I really don’t like the idea of anyone else being Scotland’s No 1.”

*Watch the full interview with Kirsty Law on www.scottishathletics.org.uk

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