Player Interview: Mhairi Gilmour

Posted on 09. Oct, 2012 by Stephen Kennedy in Features

On Sunday 7th of October 2012, I was treated to an exceptional game of football at the KSC Sports Centre in Kilwinning as the hosts welcomed Hibernian 2000, the current league leaders to Ayrshire.

Referee Ricky Crowe presents the Stewart First Aid Training Player of the Match to Mhairi Gilmour

The Kilwinning side was severely depleted due to injury, work commitments and the odd one here or there travelling around the world. Yes Nicola Campbell you have a lot to answer for

The game concluded in a three all draw, which was far from what I had predicted before kick-off but it just goes to show how unpredictable our game can be at times.

This match had five or six Player of the Match candidates but it wasn’t easy to look any further than hat-trick heroine Mhairi. She had possibly five clear cut chances and scored with three of them, which is not a bad return from a girl who was playing in midfield.

I spoke to Mhari after the match to get her thoughts on being our Stewart First Aid Training Player of the Match:

Name: Mhairi Gilmour-McGuire

Age: 32

Home Town: Kilmarnock

Position: Central Midfield

Club: Kilwinning

Time at club: Second season

Previous Clubs: Ayr United, Hibs, IBV of Iceland and Djurgårdens of Sweden.

Favourite food: Probably have to say Pizza

Favourite drink: ehhhh……. Fanta

Who is the club comedian: Has to be Michelle Collins.

Looking at the match, which was a cracking game of football; did you think KSC could obtain anything from this game with a severely depleted squad:

We knew it was always going to be a tough one and that we would have to battle hard due to the players missing through injuries or work commitments but I think we had to believe and trust in the squad that was on the park. We showed from the beginning of the game that we were ready for a fight and we played a lot of good football too.

You must be pleased to received the Player of the match award but who would you have chosen had it not been you:

That’s a really tough one to call. I think the whole team played brilliantly and we performed probably to the best of our ability on the day against a very good Hibs side, who pushed us to the limits. However, looking back our keeper Lauren McGregor was outstanding, particularly in the second half when Hibs had us under so much pressure. I have to say her save from the penalty kick was crucial or rather her double save, followed by a number of superb stops in the last ten minutes were remarkable. I would probably go for Lauren.

Hibs in the first half were pretty poor, was this because of Kilwinning’s tactics or some other reason: We played them earlier in the season and knew they were an excellent side. They like to build from the back so our game plan was to apply pressure on them early and shut their route out of defence down as quickly as possible. We were aware of how good they are and what they would bring to the table so we had to counteract that with our own tactics, which for the majority of the match, worked a treat. We didn’t want them playing through their midfield as they have a lot of fast, creative players in their squad and would obviously cause us a lot of problems. It must have worked as you have already said, they were pretty poor in the first period.

Yes it would appear that way. They were a different animal in the second half: Yes tired legs and no substitutes was a contributor to that but all things considered, we are happy with the result against a very good Hibs team.

I couldn’t agree more, Craig and the girls of KSC should be proud of the effort put into this match. It was an brilliant spectacle and wonderful advert for the women’s game. And of course let us not forget the contribution that the girls of Hibs 2000 made. A class team!

Many thanks for taking the time to speak to SWFitba and for an great interview.