Sport / Award nomination delight for girls and women’s football club
The club is also looking to find a new treasurer
THERE is more good news for the Shetland Girls and Women’s Football Club after their successful 2025 was capped off with nominations for a trio of national awards.
The club has received three nominations in the prestigious ScottishPower Scottish Women’s Football (SWF) awards, which will be held at Hampden in Glasgow at the end of the month.
It comes on top of a raft of recent nominations for the Shetland Sports awards.
The club has been nominated for the Scottish Power Sustainable Club of the Year prize for its efforts in developing girls and women’s football in Shetland, an award the club was previously nominated for in 2023.
Freya Leslie has been nominated as Highlands and Islands player of the year for her outstanding 11 goals in four games in Shetland’s successful cup campaign.
Finally, long-standing club secretary Adam Priest has been nominated as volunteer of the year for his work across the club.
Speaking about the club’s nominations, Priest said: “It’s a real surprise but delighted that the work of the club has been recognised at a local and now national level.
“It is quite bittersweet at present as we pride ourselves on being a 100 per cent volunteer run club, but we are having difficulty in filling our club treasurer role.
“Sheila Duncan has done an amazing job over the last five years and to be fair to her, she made clear her intentions to stand down 18 months ago.
“She has very kindly offered to help with the transition to a new person, but weeks of searching for a candidate have come up with no new names.
“We have an EGM next week on 4th November and are hoping we can fill the role and continue the clubs good work.”
When asked about the workload required for the treasurer role, Priest said it is about ten hours a month on average, “but things obviously get busier at financial year ends”.
“Sheila has done a lot of much-appreciated additional work relating to this year’s island games, so there would be biennial peaks of activity relating to Island Games participation,” he added.
Meanwhile Freya Leslie has expressed her surprise and delight at her player of the year nomination.
“I’m very overwhelmed, shocked and grateful to receive the nomination for Highlands and Islands Player of the Year,” she said.
“I want to thank my teammates and coaches for all the support and hard work over the past year, the only reason for being nominated is down to everyone else supporting and being my best friends through all the training, games and outside of football.”
Leslie caps off a great 2025 by joining Shetland teammates Lisa Goudie and Tahlia Leslie in signing for Aberdeen-based SWF League One side Westdyke.
“I’m just excited to start,” she said “I’m so happy be able to train and play at a high standard and get the chance to regularly compete against other women’s teams.”
Leslie is one of a number of Shetland women’s players who have made the move to mainland based clubs.
In addition to the trio at Westdyke, Inga Inkster recently joined SWF Championship club Glasgow Girls and Women, Kayla-Marie Pottinger joined Alloa Athletic, Katie Anderson is in her second season at Dryburgh Athletic (on loan to Hutchison Vale) and Stephanie Mercer is with Edinburgh Uni Thistle.
The SWF national nominations come on the back of the nominations for Shetland Sports Awards, with the women’s team being nominated for team of the year.
Women’s captain Rhea Nicolson is nominated for sportsperson of the year for her footballing and hockey exploits and Priest nominated for volunteer of the year.
The local awards ceremony is being held on 14 November at the Clickimin in Lerwick, with the SWF awards being held at Hampden on 29 November.
Club chairperson Kay Anderson said: “We’ve achieved so much as a club, especially with providing a platform for the women’s team to achieve.
“We also have plans to get girls teams away to mainland competition in 2026.
“My hope is that we can continue that work and continue to provide opportunities to grow football for girls and women, but it can’t happen without a functioning committee.
“I ask the Shetland community to join the search for a treasurer to support that continued success; it would be a shame for it all to end.”
If you are interested in joining the club as treasurer, contact shetlandgwfc@gmail.com.
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