Leanne Ross: ‘The girls deserve to be paid’

The 37-year-old emerged into football when there were few or no chances for female players.

"I still think there is vast room for improvement, in terms of investment," she told the 'Guardian.'

"But the opportunities available for girls now? Night and day compared to when I was growing up."

When Ross was 16, she didn't play for a formal team, but was discovered playing football for her school.

"The coach at Falkirk Girls came to see his daughter play in a school game. He couldn’t believe it when I said I didn’t play for a team. I played there for a year and scored 50 goals. It all kind of happened by accident. I had never chased football or had ambitions of playing for certain teams."

"I didn’t know anything about women’s football when I was growing up. It was just a hobby at that point, a chance to be out with my pals at the weekend kicking a ball about."

Ross went on to join Glasgow City from Newburgh Ladies in 2007.

The club, under Scotland manager Anna Signeul, became the dominant side in Scottish women's football, and regulars in European competition.

"Anna came in, had a vision for women’s football and was kind of ruthless in terms of what she expected from people," Ross said.

"If you didn’t meet those expectations, you weren’t part of it. She revolutionised the amount we trained and increased coach education. She should get a lot of credit but clubs like Glasgow City picked it up, believed in it and invested in it. The players started believing as well, we could see the chance to go and achieve things."

"At that time we trained two nights a week if we were lucky. Some players could only make one session. So you felt as though that was a big commitment at that point. We started being more successful, Eddie Wolecki Black came into Glasgow City and Anna was demanding more from the national team players."

Ross has showcased her versatility over her career, playing in every single outfield position.

Her amazing haul of goals has come during a single season of being a striker. 

"I didn’t even know I was nearing that mark, to be honest," Ross admitted. "It was the club’s social media stuff on the morning of the game – ‘Can she get the 250th?’ – that told me."

"The only record I have known is that Suzanne Lappin was the club’s record scorer with 232, so there was a lot made of that when I got close, the pair of us had a bit of banter about it as well. But there hasn’t really been anything this time around."

Scotland's main domestic issue is the talent drain to major English clubs and clubs abroad.

Ross thinks that the problem can be solved though: "We need to keep looking at our league and how we can make that better."

"Glasgow City have had the best players in Scotland, we have done well in the Champions League, so of course people have put themselves in the shop window. Why would they not move on if given the opportunity to be a professional elsewhere? We have had to restructure ourselves every year, bring in new players and improve them to get back to the standards we were at."

A simple fix to the problem would be to start paying female players wages, something which is not done at the moment.

"We have had to work all the time as well as play," Ross said. "That is a difficult choice, it has never been easy to balance a job and football to the standard we have been trying to play at. The girls now deserve to be paid if they are going to be training as hard as a guy is training. Until that situation changes in Scotland, we are going to struggle to keep our players here."