Aberdeen FC Women forward Francesca Ogilvie is relishing the prospect of competing against the top teams in the country next season.
Ogilvie struck twice as the Dons clinched the SWPL 2 championship with a 5-2 victory over Dundee United on Sunday afternoon.
The title win means Aberdeen will be taking on the likes of Glasgow City, Rangers and Celtic in SWPL 1 next term.
Facing off against such lofty opposition excites Ogilvie, who reckons the Reds will embrace the challenge.
“Everyone in our team aims to go and play at that level,” she said. “If you’re in this team and you’re not wanting to go and play those sides then you shouldn’t be in football.
😂 @EmmaHunterAFC attempts to talk to RedTV after The Dons clinched the SWPL2 title with two games to spare….
— Aberdeen FC (@AberdeenFC) June 27, 2021
“You have to aim to play against the best teams – it’s going to be good playing against them. (It’ll be) hard, but we’ll relish the challenge.”
Those sentiments have been echoed by Dons manager Emma Hunter.
“It will be a different type of competition. It’ll be really difficult, we know that,” said the Reds boss.
“We know we’ve got a young side but I think when you’ve got the core of a good team you can build on it and take it season by season.
“We want to play against the best teams in Scotland and I think I’ve got the players in this squad that can compete so that’s what we want to do.”
Performance of champions
Sunday’s title-winning performance also featured goals from Eva Thomson (2) and Bayley Hutchison.
The Dons came flying out the blocks and were 4-0 up within half an hour at the Regional Performance Centre as United struggled to contain them.
Aberdeen’s first match of the season was a 4-3 win over United at Cormack Park in a match where Hunter’s side were only ahead once: after Thomson’s 95th-minute winner.
“When I think about the first performance we had against them (United), they were up most of the game then it was a late 4-3 win for us,” Ogilvie said.
“So we weren’t expecting an easy game (on Sunday) at all, we were expecting a really tough one, so to then get the goal in the first few minutes and for them to just keep coming after that I thought ‘wow, here we go’.
“It’s an amazing, unbelievable feeling. Coming into the season at the start the aim was for promotion as we knew it was going to be two teams going up.
“So we were thinking ‘OK, let’s aim for second’. Then in that first game of the season against United we got a positive result and we just thought let’s carry on this momentum and keep going.
“We just kept getting really good results and the aim changed from not just going up but to actually go up in style and win it. Now we’ve done it, it feels amazing.”
