WHAT a week for Joelle Murray, the Hibernian captain. The 30-year-old was one of three Scotland players who helped promote the Euro 2017 squad announcement at Hampden on Tuesday – and 24 hours later she landed a dream job.
Murray has been Hibs through and through since being taken to Easter Road to watch games at a very young age. There couldn’t be a more appropriate Hibernian Girls Academy manager, reporting to the club’s community foundation.
“It’s a new and exciting role,” she says of a labour of love which will give her responsibility for player development, recruitment and sports science as well as developing the performance centre. “I was five when I started playing football and it has been my life ever since.”
The previous day job, working in insurance, has been parked, but she will always be grateful to her employers for their understanding of the time demands placed upon Scotland players.
Murray’s first cap was in her previous guise as a midfielder against Belgium in 2007, and her experience of the position shows in composure and awareness at the back.
“It was Willie Kirk [the former Hibs head coach] who first played me as a centre-back and I was a bit disappointed,” she recalls. “I wanted to be in the thick of it as centre midfielder, but it has turned out to be a good switch.”
Brought up in Chirnside, football was in the family through her father, Alan, who not only took her to Hibs games from the age of five, but also his own as a player and later a manager with two local clubs. Murray is now taking her own coaching badges, as one of a number of Scotland players working on the B Licence.
Her leadership qualities are evident at Hibs, having led a team of largely young players to the point where they have achieved parity with the dominant Glasgow City.
“Representing my country is always up there as a highlight,” she says of her career. “But, more recently, so was winning both cup competitions last season with this group of girls. They’re the best I’ve ever worked with at club level. For a lot of them it was their first winners’ medals.”
Murray’s family are given due credit for their roles in her development, including regular 100-mile round trips from Chirnside to Edinburgh once she had joined her only club at the age of 14. A few miles further south and she might have been an England player. Murray is unfortunate to be still seven caps short of 50 as she plays in the position where Scotland are strongest. She did start the most recent friendly against Sweden alongside Vaila Barsley, helping to restrict one of the world’s top sides to a late goal.
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