Edinburgh South women make key appointments and outline growth plan

Edinburgh South women have appointed Alfie Smith as their new head coach as they look to grow their profile in women’s football.

The vastly experienced Smith – he has spent 15 years in the women’s and girls’ game, including at Hibs – will be joined at Edinburgh South by assistant Daniel Blyth. They will work alongside current coach John Greechan, who has been with the team since their first training session in January 2022.

The new coaches have most recently worked in the national academy age group team set-up at Spartans, where they built a reputation for developing young talent. In the past two years alone, 10 of their players have gone on to make SWPL debuts.

Smith is eager to help Edinburgh South women build on a solid second season in the Biffa SWFL East. They only played their first official fixture just over a year ago. He said: “After speaking with John and the board, their vision and ambition for the women’s team and girls’ section was something I couldn’t turn down.

New manager Alfie Smith with club captain Emily Reynolds

“Whilst this will be a new challenge, I look forward to helping the club as a whole progress and pass on my experience and knowledge of the women’s game to the players and coaches. I am already planning for a pre-season, starting June 22.”

Calum Roberts, joint head of Edinburgh South’s women’s and girls’ section, said: “We feel this appointment demonstrates the club’s ambition to become a real force in the women’s game. We’re also pursuing National Academy status for our under-14s, with other age groups hopefully following suit in due course, helping us create a sustainable production line of talent for the first team.”