SWPL Fast Fives: Ciara Grant

Heart of Midlothian finished fourth in the 2022-23 SWPL under Eva Olid and Ciara Grant was central to it, taking the club’s Player of the Year award and a place in the middle of the Scottish PFA Team of the Year. The Republic of Ireland midfielder, a qualified doctor, says her greatest achievement outside football is that qualification, because it proved that hard work beats other people’s doubts. She wears six because she wore it at underage international level and because there are six in her family, and names reading the game, intercepting and covering as her strengths. Happiest, she says, right now: professional football was not something she thought possible, and at 29 she is doing it at a club she rates.