Livingston boss Paul Jaconelli talks promotion, future ambitions and off-field successes

Thirteen points clear at the top of the SWF Championship, Livingston have had a whirlwind season. As the stars continue to get brighter for the West Lothian side, head coach Paul Jaconelli has a story of success to tell but isn’t getting carried away.

The Lionesses have dominated the third tier, only dropping nine points so far. It’s a vast improvement on last season when they finished fifth. With only nine games remaining of this season and the possibility of securing promotion in less than five weeks, Jaconelli explained how his side has progressed so much.

“Having a proper pre-season has helped”, he told the Edinburgh Evening News. “Prior to that, Covid had an affect and it didn’t help with motivating the players. On top of that, the players we have brought in have made a difference. We learned from the previous seasons that we needed to win game when it is a bit more of a battle and not so pretty. We are better at that now. That’s definitely one of the improvements.”

The results have been eye-catching. Only two games ago Livingston demolished fellow promotion hopefuls Renfrew 10-1 in their biggest win of the season so far, with a hat-trick from striker Ashley Elizabeth and doubles from Shannon Mulligan and Jen Dodds. However, Jaconelli’s team won’t get ahead of themselves. He is taking nothing for granted.

Ashley Elizabeth scored a hat-trick in the 10-1 win against Renfrew. Credit: Alex Todd | Sportpix for SWF

“It wouldn’t be fair to expect what has happened, especially with the standard in the league,” Jaconelli added. “The Championship this season has a lot of good teams, so to be so many points clear wasn’t what we expected. We hoped to be challenging, so we are in that position. But it’s still too early for me to say it is done and dusted.

“It you start thinking like that and going down that road, complacency can set in and a few points can quickly change. The best focus we have is that we are challenging and still in a good position. I don’t like to look too ahead. It’s that old football scenario of one game at a time and that’s what we look to do. We don’t want to do anything else apart from that.”

Longer term, Livingston may take inspiration from Montrose and Gartcairn. After promotion from the third tier last season, they now sit first and second in SWPL2 respectively and have the top flight in their sights. Despite Livingston’s success this season, Jaconelli isn’t reading too much into that or contemplating back-to-back promotions just yet and still fully focused on moving up to SWPL2.

“We haven’t committed to a time schedule,” he stated. “We’ve got an idea of the progression we want to make, but we haven’t put a time scale on it because there are so many things that can happen in that time. We haven’t put a timescale on it, but we have put a progression scale on it. We know where we want to be with our development at such a time. All going well, that goes through properly.

“One of the major achievements for us would be to get into the SWPL set up. That’s our first ambition. Hopefully, we can get to that soon. In a year's time, we may be able to talk about what our next progression will be and that will be competing at the top level. However, I don’t want to put a time on it. We look at each one as we go along.

“The hope is that in the future the club can become one that can compete as we go through the leagues. We have got our youth set up in place at the club and we are trying to develop that at a good level. Everyone wants to compete at a decent level. Hopefully, when we go up the leagues we will start to attract different types of players as well. We play all our games and train at the stadium. We train really well. That in itself has attracted players to us this season. As we go up the leagues hopefully, that will still be the case. The girls that are here now deserve credit. It is down to the lot of hard work from them that has put us in the position we are in.”

Off the field, Livingston has also taken great strides. In, they changed their shorts from white to black to make their players more comfortable when having their period. In addition to this, under 16s and 18s sides have been integrated into the club to strengthen the overall pathway into the first team.

“The shorts situation was driven by the players and we were in a position to make sure we accommodated that,” Jaconelli said. “We are trying to do the same as far as the academy is concerned. Sometimes you can grow these things too quickly and not put the proper details in, but it’s a progressive thing and I like the way we are going about it. We are making sure we are going through all the progressions slowly and accurately.

“You want to make sure you don’t rush in and you’ve got it set up properly. The philosophy of the club is that we see the academy and the players as the number one thing. That’s the same attitude from the club that has been backing us, they are on the same wavelength as us.”