The Celtic Women’s Team will become the first ever full-time women’s side in the country this year.
But ahead of the new campaign, manager Eddie Wolecki Black has been putting building blocks in place nicely for the return to action in February.
The Hoops will kick-off their first campaign as a full-time outfit on February 10th at home to Forfar Farmington. Celtic play their home matches at K-Park in East Kilbride. Following on from that, a huge clash away to Hibernian will see the Hoops hopefully start their first season full-time with maximum points.
The bid to halt Glasgow City going for 13-in-a-row will be an immensely tough one. But Black has been going about his business well during the break to eat into their stranglehold.
Hoops have already signed four players
Celtic have certainly been active over the course of the close-season. Since the women’s team signed off with an impressive 2-1 win at Stirling University, Black has been busy.
Already, the former Glasgow City head coach has brought in four new acquisitions. These include the highly successful Kirsty McLaughlin and Emma Black from Motherwell, as well as Cody Hay from Hamilton. The trio were announced as a triple-signing by the club.
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Just last week, however, Black added his latest recruit into the mix. 12-year veteran Katherine Smart joined up with the Hoops to make her debut in a 2-1 success over Scotland Under-19s at the Oriam.
All four signings will be welcome additions to Black’s side. Especially McLaughlin and Black, who were part of the Motherwell Women’s team to get promotion from the SWPL 2 last season. They also reached the Scottish Cup final, only to be knocked out by Hibernian.
Pre-season tournament in Germany
The team have also been preparing in Germany over the last weekend at a special invitation-only indoor five-a-side tournament in Potsdam.
The tournament itself saw Celtic face the likes of Sparta Prague, Turbine Potsdam, St Polten, and Red Star Belgrade. The competition itself was named the AOK Turbine Hallencup. Unfortunately, however, the Ghirls suffered a few painful defeats which they’ll undoubtedly learn from.
The Hoops did bag one win in the competition against Red Star Belgrade. The whole competition, however, will have been a fantastic learning process.
And now the countdown to the new season begins. Black and the Ghirls certainly haven’t been sitting waiting on it either, with a lot of hard work seemingly going into preparations.
It’ll be interesting to see over the coming months just how much Scotland’s first-ever full-time women’s team performs.