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Fleeting delighted with MBE award 

Scotland and Arsenal striker Julie Fleeting says she hopes her MBE appointment for services to women's football will boost the game's profile. 

Fleeting, 27, told BBC Sport that her appointment in the Queen's Birthday Honours List came as a "big shock". "It wasn't something that I expected so to get the letter through the post was a big shock and I'm delighted. "By receiving this, everyone can see that women's football is now being taken seriously in this country." 

Fleeting, started playing football at the age of five, and has enjoyed spells at Ayr United and San Diego Spirit. 

She has scored 103 goals in 104 games for the national side and hopes her MBE will raise the profile of women's football. 

"In order for us to move forward, then we would like more support from elsewhere," she explained. 

"In Scotland, the women's game is amateur and we work throughout the week and then play our games at the weekend. 

"We would love to progress to be semi-professional. That would require more money being put into the women's game." 

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CONGRATULATIONS JULIE FLEETING MBE

 
                                                          Saturday, 14 June 2008


 

Scotland captain Julie Fleeting has been awarded an MBE for services to women’s football.

Julie is Scotland’s most prolific goal scorer with 103 goals in 104 games, and says she is “thrilled and delighted” at the honour. Julie made her Scotland debut against Wales in 1996 , aged 15. She was the first Scottish woman to play in the professional WUSA league in America, and in her two seasons with San Diego Spirit Julie was named Most Valuable Player by her team mates and coaches, and picked up the club’s Golden Boot award.

Now playing with Arsenal LFC in the English Premier League, Julie continues to score regularly for club and country. Julie commented: "Hopefully this will help people to see that women's football is now being taken seriously in this country. And getting a bit of recognition will hopefully go a long way to gaining more support for our sport."

Anna Signeul, Scotland Women’s National Team Head Coach, said: “I am delighted for Julie - she has been a fantastic captain for Scotland, and is a role model for young women footballers. She thoroughly deserves this honour and everyone at the Scottish FA joins me in offering her our congratulations.”

Earlier this year, Julie was also named Sports Personality of the Year by Field In Trust, formerly the Playing Fields Association, joining past recipients such as racing driver Jackie Stewart, sprinter Lee McConnell, and ex Scotland Manager Craig Brown. Julie was recognised for her achievement in reaching 100 caps and goals for Scotland, and was praised as a fantastic role model for young people.

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 Julie Fleeting (married name Stewart) (b. December 18, 1980, Kilwinning, North Ayrshire.

YOU would expect that the most prolific goalscorer of all time for a national side would be a household name in most countries. But this is Scotland, and Julie Fleeting suffers from a disadvantage in Scottish football terms - she is self-evidently a woman. 

Despite the valiant efforts of development officers and the enthusiastic support of the SFA, women's football is still not given serious attention in our macho chauvinist culture. If it were, Julie Fleeting would be a famous national heroine as she approaches her 100th. cap for Scotland's senior side, for which she made her debut at the age of just 15 against Wales in November 1996. 

 
Fleeting, who lives in North Ayrshire, inhabits a football world. This is no Bend It Like Beckham tale of thwarted dreams, disapproving parents, and cultural repression. Nearly everyone connected with her seems to play. Her father, Jim Fleeting, is the Scottish Football Association Director of Football Development. He played one season for the Tampa Bay Rowdies in the NASL in 1978...He also played professionally in England for Norwich City and in Scotland for Ayr United and was one-time manager of Kilmarnock. As as a child growing up in Kilwinning it was natural for her to kick a ball about with her younger brother, or her cousin who lived next door. For a while, she played at primary school, but at secondary there was no team, and she eventually resorted to joining a local boys' team. "I've always been a footballer to my family. That's not something that came all of a sudden to them. They just accept it. They're part of the reason I'm playing where I am now. I would never have got this far in football if I hadn't had their support."

In a way, it could have been any sport as Julie could take up virtually anything and play it professionally - she's played for the Scotland basketball team. So why football ? "It was just what I enjoyed the most," she says. "It wasn't the fact that it was a boys' sport ... it wasn't about proving anything. That just made it all the harder, like you had to travel further to be in a team." Nor was it pushy father syndrome - Fleeting gives the impression that her dad was happy for her to do whatever she wanted. "He comes to as many matches as he can, or at least he did when I played here. And they came over to America. But he's not one of those dads who'll push in after every game and give me a report of how I've played. He's not like that at all. I mean if I need a bit of advice I know I can get that. I'll ask him wee things, like how many runs I should have made. But he'll not say, 'You should have done this or you should have done that.' He'll let me make up my own mind, won't annoy me after games or anything."

In America, where she played for 18 months for San Diego Spirit in the now collapsed WUSA league, Fleeting had her one experience of what it's like to be professional: to get up in the morning, train, go to the gym, spend your week focused on the upcoming game, make football your life. "I enjoy teaching, but given the option of getting up in the morning and going training, yeah I would take that." 
Over there she proved a hit, earned the nickname "Air Scotland" and was voted "most valuable player" by fans and team-mates and won her clubs 'Golden Boot' accolade. Though the death of the WUSA league seemed to signal a dead-end for women's football, she is optimistic. "It made a lot of people think if they can't pull it off, then what country will ? But it was just the way they worked the money over there, that was a first go, and they're going to learn from their mistakes and pull it back in 2005. In America, women's football is big. We drew big crowds. And it's big for the kids. You'll drive past a playing field and you won't see boys' teams. It will be all girls' teams. Girls' football over there is very much middle-class. It's all the parents that take their kids to play. It's not a working-class sport at all. That's the big difference. Over here it's working class. Well, it's everything really. It's kids in the streets." 
 
On Wednesday, Fleeting is set to captain Scotland against Denmark in a European Qualifying match at McDiarmid Park in Perth, which is now the permanent home of the women's national team and the centre for education and club development activity. 

"It will be a very tough match for us on Wednesday, no question," said Fleeting, "but we have a good squad of players, many of whom are still comparatively young even though they have played alongside each other many times." 

 

 
 
Julie returned from her two very successful seasons with San Diego Spirit and finally joined Arsenal in the English Premier League in January 2004. She has been a regular goal scorer for them, netting a hat-trick in their 2005 FA Cup Final win over Charlton Athletic Ladies only one day after suffering a shin injury playing for Scotland. Julie was voted 'Player's Player of the Year' at the 7th Annual FA Women's Football Awards in June 2005. 

The striker has become a cult hero in her homeland where the women's game is still struggling to find its place. During an unstable period for Scottish women's football Fleeting's 100 goals have become a silver lining.