SWPL1 the aim says new Boroughmuir boss Andy Enwood

Former Hearts manager Andy Enwood was appointed as the Boroughmuir boss on Monday with the club setting their sights on top-tier football.

Enwood led FC Edinburgh to a league and cup double last season while remaining unbeaten in League One. After Suzy Shepherd ended her five-and-a-half-year stay at Boroughmuir on last week, Enwood was announced as her successor less than 24 hours after. Boroughmuir had come close to promotion in their last two seasons with both campaigns going to the final day. In 2021/22 the Edinburgh club were one win off SWPL1 football but a 3-1 loss to Glasgow Women saw them reach the top division instead. Last weekend, the Edinburgh side had a slim had of reaching a promotion playoff spot but their 2-1 loss to Montrose combined with Gartcairn’s victory meant that promotion would have to wait once more.

“It’s been a very quick turnaround,” Enwood told the Edinburgh Evening News. “Suzy Shepherd had her own reasons for deciding to step back and as any club will try and do they made an action plan for the next stages. Shepherd has been at the club for a long time and has taken the club forward. As much as it would have been sad for her to leave the club after such a long period, the club has to move on and try to get someone in place with that being me.

“It has to be that, that can be the only objective to get the team into the SWPL1. The club have obviously been fairly close over the last couple of seasons. Essentially my job is now to come in and try and add a little bit more to get them over the line and that’s the objective. Time will tell if we will be able to do that but it is a challenge that we are really looking forward to. That is ultimately the goal to get promoted at the end of the season.”

Last season, Boroughmuir results were certainly unorthodox. The Edinburgh side managed to consistently get results out of the top two sides and even beat Gartcairn 7-0 back in March. Yet, they still struggled against the lower teams and dropped points to the bottom two sides multiple times. The loss of these points was a major reason why Boroughmuir didn’t reach the promised land, with Enwood’s major task in his new role being to try and correct this issue.

“It's consistency and that is one of the major barriers for the team to getting that promotion last season,” he explained. “They had success against the teams in the top half of the table and then had an inability at times to make sure that they took points off teams lower down in the league.

“Obviously, every single game is difficult and consistency is something that helps to be driven into a team to make sure that every single game is approached the same. To make sure that you don’t fall foul of taking points off the top teams and then losing points against the teams towards the bottom. That is something that I would like to think I am able to add, consistency, the standards and various little things and making sure that they are driven in and happening on a day-to-day basis.”