Kim Little’s Huge Contribution
This piece first featured in Issue 22 of Nutmeg Magazine that was published in December 2021. You can subscribe to the magazine here.
What conditions opinion when discussing greatness? Is it an emotional response to a style of play? The exquisite way that Caroline Weir stops, pivots and elegantly threads through-ball after through-ball to her attacking colleagues? The pride-swelling tenacity that Erin Cuthbert shows as she harries her opponents before flipping the switch to become a dynamic attacking force?
Is it tenure? The old adage that form is temporary, class is permanent holds true for a reason. Former captain Gemma Fay had accumulated 203 caps as Scotland’s №1 before calling time on her interna- tional career. She may be the only double centurion but there are another 13 players to have crossed the turf over a 100 times with the lion rampant close to their heart.
You can’t win a game without goals. Is that the most important? Julie Fleeting scored 116 times in just 121 appearances. The Ayrshire-born striker is one of just two female players in the current Scottish Football Hall of Fame and the image of Fleeting bulleting home headers still endures. Not that she wouldn’t face competition for her starting spot today. Jane Ross has been the pivot of Scotland’s attack during our nation’s most successful era and only Fleeting has scored more than her.
Moments are important. In the age of digestible content and digital timestamping, the ability to produce something that we can watch on repeat shouldn’t be underestimated.
Cuthbert wheeling away in ecstasy at Hampden as she opened the scoring against Jamaica, or the childhood photograph she retrieved from her socks as she added a third against Argentina in Paris. Lee Alexander’s penalty save against Poland in World Cup qualifying was the catalyst for the run that would lead Scotland all the way to those finals in France. And what of the goals from Weir and Claire Emslie at championship finals, one sealing a first SWNT victory at a major tournament, the other bookmarked in the pages of history as Scotland’s first at a Women’s World Cup?
And of course there are the trailblazers like Margaret McAuley, Scotland’s first captain, and the charismatic Rose Reilly whose travels across Europe continue to be eulogised.
In truth all carry their own levels of significance and while conversation about greatness can never be definitive — each opinion, even when backed up with reasoned logic, remains subjective — for me Kim Little is perhaps the greatest Scottish footballer not just of this generation or gender, but of any that came before her.
Therefore, it was with a tinge of sadness that I read the news that on September 1, 2021 Little would be retiring from international football at the age of 31; a player still in her prime and the fulcrum of Scotland’s most successful generation had decided it was time to step away.
Let’s get the basics out of the way. In a 14-year international career Little was capped on 140 occasions (at the time of writing only three other players have amassed more) and scored 59 times from midfield (only the aforementioned Fleeting and Ross have netted more). She was key to qualification for Euro 2017 and participated when Scotland made their World Cup debut two years later in France as well as being the only Scot to have been called up to the Team GB Olympic side for both the 2012 and 2020 games.
On an individual level, recognition has never been far away. She is the only Scot to be crowned FA Women’s Player of the Year (2010), PFA Women’s Players Player of the Year (2013) and BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year (2016), a title reserved for the very best in the world.
Her numbers and personal accolades alone will see her go down as an all-time Scotland great, but much like the great artists of our time, it is her ability to cast an eye over a landscape and create new and lasting imagery that will endure for years to come.
Having broken into the Hibernian first team aged just 16, the Aberdeenshire- born midfielder made her Scotland debut six months later, and from there she never looked back. Playing with a presence that enlarged her diminutive stature, the trademark “Kimmy Shimmy” would be at the heart of everything Scotland would go on to achieve during her career in dark blue, weaving intricate attacking tapestries that would fray the threads of opposing defences before putting them back together in knots. The middle of the park was the sprawling canvas she splashed with colour in all manner of ways, long brushstrokes of a sweeping cross-field pass or pencil sharp precision used to hone in on the acutest of angles, wearing opposing defences down before delivering the final flourish to her latest masterpiece.
My first recognition of her art was in 2012. Her international career was already entering its sixth year at this stage but for me women’s football was a brand new adventure. Scotland had come through qualifying to secure a Euro 2013 play-off against Spain and Little would not just once but twice have us in the driving seat before ultimate heartbreak was eventually the all too familiar way.
In a two-legged tie that was too close to call, Little’s calmly dispatched penalty at Hampden put Scotland 1–0 up with 25 minutes gone. The lead lasted just five minutes, Adrianna levelled the score as Anna Signeul’s squad headed to Las Rozas on the outskirts of Madrid with the contest finely poised.
As the full-time whistle rang out in Spain, the score was again balanced at 1–1 as the tie headed into extra time. Scotland, and in particular Little, seized the initiative. In the 98th minute she used her strength to win the ball on the edge of the centre circle before slaloming past two Spanish defenders, her head remaining on a constant pivot. Seeing space on the left hand side she cut away from goal before sliding an angled effort in off the base of the home side’s post. The Kimmy Shimmy had worked its magic again. Unfortunately adversity soon returned, Silvia Meseguer equalising with seven minutes to go before a Vero Boquete strike two minutes into added time of extra time saw the Spanish dugout spill across the pitch, leaving Scotland to wait another four years to make their major tournament bow.
Little missed that debut at the 2017 European Championships as a result of a serious knee injury, but that didn’t prevent her from stamping her creativity on the qualifying campaign, scoring five goals, including a hat trick in a 3–0 victory away to Slovenia, as Scotland secured the runners-up spot behind Iceland.
Having continued to hone her craft in the United States and then Australia she returned to Arsenal in 2017, her spell stateside with Seattle Reign culminating with that World Player of the Year title. After missing out on the Euros, Little returned to full fitness and was soon back to her creative ways in the dark blue of Scotland as Shelley Kerr succeeded the influential Signeul. She was now the maestro, surrounded by an exciting and increasingly talented crop of apprentices with the 2019 World Cup qualifying campaign that followed perhaps her greatest composition.
In the Polish town of Kielce it was Little’s left-wing free kick that started a run of three goals in 12 minutes as Scotland recovered from 2–0 down to keep their qualification hopes alive. The flight of her dangerous low cross towards Katarzyna Kiedrzynek’s goalmouth deceived the keeper before bouncing into the opposite corner.
Having scored, Little dropped deeper to receive the ball, setting off runners at nearly every opportunity. After Jane Ross had brought the scores level, a Little effort crashed off the underside of the bar before a ball to Caroline Weir allowed the player most see as the heir to Little’s now abdicated throne to release Lisa Evans, the winger bursting into the box to seal victory.
A 1–0 defeat to Switzerland earlier in the campaign meant victory was a must in the return fixture at St. Mirren Park, where a winning margin of two would put Scotland in pole position going into the final round of fixtures. It was a fast start as Little, surrounded by three Swiss defenders, showed nimble feet in tight quarters to start the move that saw Erin Cuthbert blast home with just two minutes gone. The midfielder got on the scoresheet herself four minutes later. Combining with Evans as the pair quickly drew up another one of those mesmerising triangles, Little drove into the area, and her deflected effort deceived Gaelle Thalmann and left fans dreaming.
A Lara Dickenmann effort one minute later halved the deficit and the score remained 2–1 until the final whistle. A win, but it was advantage to the Swiss, who travelled to Poland knowing that victory would seal their spot in France as the Scots headed to Albania on the final day.
In what was a nervy display in Shkoder it was Little who opened the scoring, volleying home a Lizzie Arnot knockdown as Kerr’s side scraped the win they needed. Attention soon turned to Groclin as news filtered through that the Swiss had been held in Poland; Scotland had made it to a first ever World Cup finals and Little had scored in each of those final three crucial games.
The Scots’ preparations for France took them to Pinatar in the south of Spain where Little demonstrated her craft against one of the most expressive and romanticised nations in football history, Brazil. The Mintlaw-born midfielder started and finished the move that brought her the only goal of the game as a senior Scotland side defeated Brazil for the first ever time.
Picking the ball up inside her own half she drove forward. She funnelled the ball out to the right wing to release Lizzie Arnot, who headed for the touch line. The winger cut the ball back to Little who had arrived late in the box to stroke home from six yards.
Scotland were riding a wave of momentum and Little came into the World Cup not only in fine form internationally but also having just captained Arsenal to a Women’s Super League title, her third with the north London club. However, in a tough group, Scotland suffered opening defeats to England and 2011 World Cup winners Japan, and she struggled to make her mark.
With victory against Argentina a must, it looked as if the little maestro had finally sent Scotland on their way, poking home the opener from an Erin Cuthbert cutback as Scotland found themselves 3–0 up with 20 minutes left to play. Scotland would collapse though, and elimination was confirmed when the South Americans equalised with a controversial late goal from the spot.
The following autumn Scottish focus turned to qualifying for the European Championships, a tournament being hosted by neighbours England. Any fears around a World Cup hangover were seemingly blown away as the top-seeded Scots thrashed qualifying debutants Cyprus 8–0 with Little as tormentor in chief, scoring five for the first time in her career. However, the hangover from that night in Paris still seemed to linger, and Scotland limped out of the running with two games still to play.
Injuries meant Little only featured twice more during that campaign, one of those games being the defeat that sealed Scotland’s fate. Missing out on qualification was a bitter disappointment, but there was still some surprise that at just 31 Little had decided that this would be the moment to step away as new manager Pedro Martinez Losa began his reign.
She revealed it was a decision that she had been contemplating for some time, and while Scotland fans will look at the manner in which she continues to excel in the red and white of Arsenal and feel pangs of a love just lost, it is understandable that a talent who helped blaze the trail may want to make hay as the women’s game accelerates at an ever-increasing pace.
Towards the end of her time with the national side, she may have stepped back from the limelight as younger teammates began to emerge but her achievements in a Scotland jersey have allowed those who will follow in her footsteps to see vividly the players that they can become.
Influencing future generations of Scotland stars and attracting new fans to the game, her feet were the brushes, the field her canvas. For Scotland, Kim Little was an artist in every sense of the word, admired by her teammates and adored by the fans. We should cherish the memories and look forward with excitement to the moments she will have inspired that are yet to come.