The Best in the Land

Hearts are SWPL champions for the first time, though they clinched it in the strangest fashion, by losing. A 2-0 defeat at Edinburgh rivals Hibernian would have handed the title to Rangers had they won at Glasgow City, Hearts holding the superior head-to-head record as the primary tiebreaker. Instead Rangers were three down by half-time and lost 6-0, rendering the Meadowbank result irrelevant. It was the division’s two most clinical sides who went to the wire, Hearts with 85 goals and Rangers 80. Captain Georgia Hunter, at the club 13 years, hoisted the trophy for departing head coach Eva Olid, the only non-Scottish manager in the division, whose exit had been confirmed in April after five years in charge.