The ex-Welsh athlete at the forefront of the Hamilton Accies revival

The 152-year-old South Lanarkshire institution are without a permanent manager, players have departed after not receiving their wages, a transfer embargo remains in place, an emergency loan from The Funding Globe needs to be repaid and they are still based at Broadwood not New Douglas Park.

Having been docked nine points last month for breaching league rules – one of several savage SFA and SPFL punishments which the previous regime were hit with during their tumultuous tenure – the unthinkable prospect of relegation to League 2 this season remains a possibility. Their recovery will definitely be a marathon not a sprint.

It is maybe just as well, then, that Rob Edwards, the London-based entrepreneur and MSM founder, has drafted in former Welsh international athlete Rebecca Nuttall, the chief executive of Cymru Premier outfit Haverfordwest County, to help.  

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Haverfordwest are one of the sporting organisations in the MSM stable. Edwards has been impressed with the improvements which Nuttall has overseen both on and off the park at the Bridge Meadow Stadium in the two years since she was appointed. He had no hesitation making her Hamilton acting chief executive last week.

But who is the 35-year-old from Shotton in Flintshire? How did she end up running a football club in Pembrokeshire? What does she know about the weird and wonderful world of Scottish football? And perhaps most importantly what can she do to help ailing Accies to emerge from their current crisis unscathed?

“Athletics was my sport when I was growing up,” she said. “I was a middle-distance runner. I ran in the 800m and 400m. I represented Wales from when I was 15 until I was about 20. I competed until I was around 22 and then transitioned into sport development and then into football.

“It was a career decision to stop running really. Athletics is completely different to football. It is an individual sport, you train twice a day, you sacrifice a lot. I was at university and I wanted to focus on my studies and my career.

“I did my Masters in sport management at Cardiff Met University. From there, I went on to specialise in football. I actually really didn't like football growing up. But that has definitely changed. When you start working with a team you do become quite passionate about the results. I think it replaced my competitiveness from the track.

New Hamilton Academical acting chief executive Rebecca Nuttall (Image: Promotional)

“I managed the sport development side of the university and looked after athletics, netball and football. When the university football team got into the Cymru Premier, we had to align the academy to the first team. So I started to focus heavily on the administration side. I progressed into licensing and became secretary and general manager. 

“When Rob took over at Haverfordwest he gave me a call and asked if I would be interested in joining them. I'd been in my job for a long time and it was a good opportunity to move to another football club in the same league. I understood the rules and regulations.”

Nuttall continued, “But I found it was a completely different animal. At the university, we had an estates department, a finance department and a human resources department. I suddenly found all those things came under my remit at a traditional football club. A lot of learning took place in the first few months.

“But it was good for me. I really enjoyed the challenge. It was an opportunity to turn around the club a little bit, bring in some new staff, look at different areas which we needed to develop and improve. We didn't have a 3G pitch, for example, so we set up a project to get one. There have been some really good challenges in the first two years.

“But it was really about bringing the club together. It was very separated at first. There was a first team, an academy and not much community impact. But when we got the 3G pitch laid it meant the academy could train at the ground and we could host school football festivals and such like. We have managed to bring everyone together.

“Our attendances on match days have probably tripled if not quadrupled. We got a huge crowd for our European game, for our Conference League qualifier, against Floriana of Malta back in July.

“Our development team qualified for Europe as well. They played Buducnost Podgorica of Montenegro in the first round of the UEFA Youth League. It was an amazing opportunity for our kids to go out overseas and play against foreign opponents. About four or five of them had to get passports because they had never been abroad before.”

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Nuttall, who flew up to Scotland to meet with Hamilton staff in person for the first time today, is optimistic her knowledge of and experience in football club administration will, even though it has been at a lower level and in a different country, prove invaluable in her interim role.

"We are working on strengthening our connection with supporters and creating a renewed sense of pride in the badge.

We encourage supporters of all generations to be part of this next chapter and wear the colours with pride."

Read more over on our website 🔽

— Hamilton Academical FC (@theacciesfc) January 12, 2026

“At the end of the day, it is a football club,” she said. “Yes, Hamilton and Haverfordwest are perhaps on different scales, but they are both football clubs. A template can be used across various entities. We will, for example, definitely try to embed some of the community elements that we have at Haverfordwest at Hamilton in due course.

“I'm coming in on the operational side and trying to keep the club going while the board deal with creditors and financial difficulties. I've been trying to get to know the manager, coaches, players and staff who are still left. We've had loads of calls remotely. It's been a bit of a whirlwind over the last five days, but it’s been exciting to be honest.

“Everyone's been really welcoming. The staff that are still there and even staff at the ground have been really helpful to us. You really sense that people want things to get better rather than wait for it to fall apart.” 

In the short time which MSM have been in situ, Hamilton have launched a half-season ticket for their home matches at Broadwood which they hope their fans, many of whom had boycotted the ground during the 2025/26 campaign in protest at being moved 15 miles away from their spiritual home, will take advantage of.

Nuttall, too, has quickly utilised her contacts and been responsible for the release of a striking new strip and range of official club merchandise. Supporters have, judging by their responses online, approved. The top has been described as “tremendous”, “an absolute stunner” and a “thing of beauty” on social media.  

“A company called Tor Sports do all the kit for us at Haverfordwest,” she said. “I was introduced to Will Morgan, who set up the company in his bedroom during lockdown, by the Football Association of Wales (FAW) when he was just starting out on his journey. His kits have been perfect for us.

“We wanted to become quite a unique club at Haverfordwest. We didn’t want Macron kit like every other club in our league.  Will offered us the opportunity to create anything we wanted and we took it.

“The fans absolutely love them because of the patterns and how they relate directly to our community. The design for our away kit last season, for instance, was based on a local cathedral floor. We wanted to link religion and sport and to try to create a bit of a different fan base. Random people who don’t support the team have bought them. 

“Will jumped at the chance to design the new Hamilton kit and he managed to turn it around in about 24 hours. He wanted to create something the fans could relate to and so he modelled it on an old shirt. I think it looks fantastic, quite retro.”

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Rebuilding bridges with the SFA and SPFL will be just as important for Hamilton going forward as engaging with the community, getting supporters back onside and generating fresh revenue streams. Nuttall is pleased to report that initial conversations with the latter have been cordial and constructive.

She is an executive board member of the Union of European Clubs (UEC), an independent organisation that was formed in 2023 to further the interests of non-elite clubs and now has 140 members from 25 different national associations, and believes her track record of dealing with governing bodies will prove invaluable while she is Accies’ acting chief executive.  

“The UEC been a really good opportunity for me,” she said. “It was set up to support smaller clubs across Europe. We try to lobby different organisations and push for policies which benefit smaller clubs like Haverfordwest. 

“It is exactly the same thing as the European Football Clubs (formerly the European Clubs Association), only a smaller version . When you look at the constitution of the European Football Clubs, not many clubs get voting rights. So they're voting for policy based on their own financial remuneration. 

Rebecca Nuttall at Haverfordwest County (Image: Promotional)

“Clubs like Haverfordwest don't actually see much benefit from any UEFA solidarity money and what have you, it goes to those bigger clubs. So at UEC we look at what those policies are and examine how we can rewrite them in order to benefit the wider football ecosystem. 

“It has given me an opportunity to meet representatives of a lot of other clubs across Europe and look at their practices and how they do things. Everything is shared and it helps us all develop.”

Nuttall continued, “It feels like the SPFL are going to be supportive where they can to help us get back in the right direction and really build on what we can.

“There's definitely some differences between the FAW and the SFA. But that's for me to learn over the next few weeks. Licensing happens across all associations so I imagine the fundamentals will be pretty similar.

“We've had meetings with everyone involved and we’re now trying to put processes in place and look at how we can address some of the issues we have and move forward. It's not for me to comment on what has happened in the past at Hamilton.”