Alana Marshall, What a Pler
For two decades pitches across Scotland have been blessed by the boots of the four time Scotland cap. We wanted to take a moment to give a legend of Scottish football her flowers.
To set the scene… the SWPL is heading into its second ever season, professionalism in the UK is but a fever dream with the advent of the WSL still 6 years away, and a player that would change the game was making her first steps into senior football. Her passion and dedication forever altering the trajectory of women’s football in this country, something that she is still doing to this day. So, without further adieu…
Alana Marshall made her debut in the same year as “She Will Be Loved” by Maroon 5 hit the charts, foreshadowing for the emotion she would inspire soon after. Entering her 20th year in first team football Marshall’s tight control, quick turn of pace, and set piece wizardry were brought into the spotlight when a 17-year-old in an oversized kit walked out for Falkirk.
As is the case with much of the noughties in women’s football, history has been lost to expired websites and a lack of coverage. But on that matchday, in the old SWFL Division One, something changed in the air. A season later she was awarded the club’s player of the year award. Scottish women’s football had entered the era of Alana Marshall.
Ainslie Park would be the venue for the moment. Marshall’s name coming to the fore in a Scottish Cup tie against top division opposition. Forfar Farmington had made the journey down, a comfortable win predicted for them as they played their first game following a ninth placed finish in the top flight the season prior. Fiona McNicol in the Forfar goal is tested a few times in the opening ten, her quality shining through an illustration of the uphill battle it would take for Falkirk to score.
The 14th minute. The sound of boot on ball echoing through the hallways of Scottish football past, present, and future. The net eternally rippling. Alana Marshall had struck. The ball flying off of her left foot straight into the top corner. It’s the trademark Alana Marshall goal. We like to imagine hairs standing on end in the crowd, gasps and disbelief flowing through those in attendance as if they knew this was something bigger than one goal. The start of a special career.
Unfortunately for Falkirk on the day, historical moments do still only count for one. They would succumb to a late fightback from the favourites and go out with a 3-2 loss. Fiona McNicol the hero for the victors but 21-year-old Alana Marshall had sent a signal to the SWPL, and made her name in the capital.
Later that year she would make the move to Hibernian in the top flight, a short spell there ended with a move to city rivals Boroughmuir Thistle (also of the top flight). Still a kid really at just 21, it was her three years at Thistle that started to define her game and help her become the force she is today. Taking to the task of the top division with typical grit and determination. In purple and white Marshall would begin to dictate games to her rhythm. Jinking round defenders, playing inch perfect passes, and of course, firing the ball into the net from almost anywhere.
It was a spell that had eyes firmly fixed on her, her rapid rise never ending, each week a new highlight. A year after joining she won the SWPL Player of the Year award, a season in which Boroughmuir Thistle finished 9th. It takes a special player to be awarded such an honour in a season where they spent more time looking over their shoulder at relegation than dreaming of titles. Good thing Alana Marshall is a special player. It was a string of performances that had made an impression, and just a few months later the call came from Anna Signeul to invite her to a National Team training camp. By our records the first and only time a Boroughmuir Thistle player has been called up to the senior National Team.
She would have to wait another two years to be capped but in February 2011 it would come. Marshall had just signed for Rangers, a big move taking her talents West as the Glasgow club looked to be ambitious three years into their history, and in their second year in the top flight. Scotland were playing a friendly against Wales at Tynecastle, the clock ticked over to the 88th minute with the score 4-2. 21-year-old Hayley Lauder had put the game to bed with her second on the night and was replaced by Marshall, 16 emblazoned on the back of her kit. A Scotland international.
Three more substitute appearances for the national side would come that year, France and then Finland twice. But, her story wasn’t written on the national stage. Strong competition for places, a mismatch with Signeul’s tactics, her engineering career getting in the way. Whatever the reason, her lack of caps will remain one of football’s great questions. Up there with “why is it so satisfying when the ball hits the crossbar, bounces over the line, and back out again?”, “was Lee Gibson off her line?”, and “what’s the deal with SWPL 2?”.
Her three year tenure at Rangers, another club for whom she is the first international, solidified her status as one of the league’s finest. Her deadly set piece threat was amplified, she continued to turn defenders into wacky waving inflatable arm women, and nets across the country were adorned with scorch marks to commemorate her blasts from range. But, it was time for her to move back East. Her first spell with the club she is synonymous with today. Alana Marshall, welcome to Spartans.
Back to Ainslie Park, the venue for that goal. The one that set all of this off, the first domino to fall. It may have been Debbi McCulloch that signed her but she was always destined to find a home in Pilton, and once she did… wow, it was some home.
It didn’t take too long for her to earn the love of Spartans fans, in her first season Spartans went into the split 4 points behind her former club. In the final ten games they scored 18 and finished two points above Rangers. Alana Marshall spent the season giving defenders nightmares, cracking those trademark shots off her left foot, creating chances for her teammates with pinpoint accuracy. As the season grew, so did the legend of Alana Marshall with it all culminating in reaching the SWPL Cup final. A loss on the day doing nothing to dent Spartans’ pride.
In 2014 Spartans continued to make waves in the top six, settling for a consecutive fourth place finish. They reached another final, this time the Scottish Cup. A repeat of the result of the season prior wasn’t what they had hoped for, but it was still an historic result for the club. And in the history of Scottish football as attendances continued to grow at pace. Alana Marshall was ever-present. Players’ player of the year, a crazy goal against Aberdeen (you’ll see why this is relevant soon), a huge part of Spartans successes.
Her final act in her first spell as Spartans’ playmaker, being awarded the club’s goal of the season award for an audacious free kick to open the season against Aberdeen (Becky Flaherty must have been sick at the sight of her winding up a shot from 25+ yards at this point). Ainslie Park once again the venue for a piece of Marshall magic. Expected goals hadn’t been invented in 2016, and playing the percentage chance isn’t in Alana Marshall’s vocabulary anyway.
Louise Mason stood over a free kick on the right wing, about 25 yards from goal, Marshall lingering harmless behind her back. Mason ran up to swing the ball in, lifted her foot, and rolled it behind her for Marshall to run onto. In an instant she let the ball roll across onto her left foot, firing across the keeper and into the side netting in the top left corner. Becky Flaherty a +1 to the attendance count as she could only join the crowd following the ball as the scoring was opened.
In 2016, joined by former Scotland teammate Rebecca Dempster, Marshall left the SWPL. Fair Verona the destination for her only stint away from terrifying defenders in her home country as she linked up with Serie B’s Fimauto Valpolicella. At the time Serie B was chaotic, 52 teams split into four groups (two of 12 and two of 14) with all four group winners earning promotion to Serie A, and therefore four automatic relegation spots in Serie A. Absolutely bananas.
In Valpolicella’s group C were both Milan giants, Internazionale and AC Milan, but Valpolicella would see them off led by their Scottish attacking force. In an interesting quirk her former Spartans teammate, Lana Clelland, scored 23 in Serie A that season to earn the golden boot. Weird how life works sometimes. For Marshall, it wasn’t the Italian love affair Dempster and Clelland experienced though and six months after moving over to Verona, Marshall was headed back to the SWPL.
The sun was released from the crowds and the rain held off as the country welcomed back a hero. Somewhere in Pilton, Suzy Shepherd was preparing her side for a pre-season trip to Durham. Spartans had lost five consecutive games to end the season including a 3-0 home defeat against Stirling Uni, they needed a spark. A familiar face arrived at Ainslie Park ready to take up the mantle, Alana Marshall was back. This time, as club captain.
Three away days in the first five matches, four wins and a draw. Marshall scoring three. In her 101st appearance for the club and return to that ground, Ainslie Park, was the SWPL Cup quarter final against Aberdeen. Her first on the day put Spartans into the lead, an Olympico. Because of course it was. With Alana Marshall it was always going to be something special. Spartans had just equalised and straight off the kick off they won the ball back, the quick attack ended in a corner. Alana Marshall standing over the ball, the sun peeking out from behind the clouds as if it knew something was about to go down. There was that sound again. Boot on ball, ball on net, the sound of the crowd in disbelief at what they had witnessed before breaking out in harmonious celebration.
Marshall would continue to lead the club until part way through the 2019 season when she would announce her second period away from the club. This time, however, it wasn’t a half season spell tearing up Italian soil. Marshall announced that she was pregnant.
It feels weird to describe pregnancy as a season ending injury, but in footballing terms that’s what it is. At least six months out of the game, a mental and physical toll that goes beyond what most can imagine, and at 32-years-old nobody would have blamed her if this was the end of her journey on the pitch. However, Alana Marshall lives and breathes football and as the 2020 season was gearing up she was getting ready to make her return. Training on her own to build back fitness in the off-season, she was raring to go as the season kicked off.
COVID. The world stops. Her return, and the 2020 season postponed indefinitely after one matchday. Six months go by, nothing but Frauen Bundesliga on BBC Alba to keep us entertained, and then it was announced. A restructure of the league, a return for the winter season, and Alana Marshall was back causing havoc for Spartans. So much so that a year later in July 2021, she signed the club’s first ever semi-pro contract. A ground breaking moment for a club that Scottish women’s football owes so much to.
2022 came, Marshall had just celebrated her 35th birthday and was preparing to make her 200th appearance in Spartans’ colours. A second star about to be embroidered above the badge on her kit commemorates that day but, as big a moment as it was, the game didn’t really matter. She had been diagnosed with relapsing-remitting multiple sclerosis and had chosen to take this opportunity to tell the world.
MS is a condition that affects the nervous system, affecting sight, motor functions, memory, and mood. Those with relapsing-remitting MS suffer ‘attacks’ of the condition where symptoms flare up and then die down for a period. As someone that has never backed down on the pitch and long been a leader, way before she was made captain officially, it came as no surprise that she has used her platform to speak out about the condition. An emotional moment for her, but such an important one in raising awareness of a condition that affects more than 15,000 Scots.
In her 201st appearance, she assisted the opener and scored from 30 yards. Classic Alana Marshall.
“When I first started playing it was for enjoyment and, for me, at Spartans I still play for enjoyment.” As long as she’s enjoying life on the pitch, we’d love to see her add a few more memories to her 249 Spartans appearances to date. Legends will be written about her left foot, but for now, we’d rather watch her make history live.
Alana Marshall, what a pler, what a person.
For more information about MS visit the MS Society’s website. The MS Society are a charity to help those experiencing MS and to help find a cure for the condition, please consider donating or taking part in the MS walk in Glasgow on September 28th.