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bridie boy
GET A LIFE!!! |
    
June 29, 2003 Bend it like Fleeting The prolific Ayrshire striker is living the American dream in the US soccer league, writes Dave Hannigan
The rookie and the captain were sitting in a Californian airport lounge passing time one day last summer. A 21-year-old from the Ayrshire town of Kilwinning, a couple of weeks into her professional career in a new country, shooting the breeze with a woman who had been co-captain of America’s World Cup-winning soccer team, and a founder of the league they both now played in. Eventually, the talk turned to home and the respective places where they first learned the game.
This was the point when their experiences diverged as Julie Fleeting explained to Julie Foudy that, back in Scotland, it was not considered normal for women to aspire to make their living from football. “Not normal until now,” said Foudy, “you are going to change all that.”
Just over 10 months later, midway through her second campaign in the Women’s United Soccer Association, Fleeting has gone some way towards proving her teammate right. Last weekend, she scored two goals and made one in the San Diego Spirit’s 4-2 victory over the New York Power. Only a questionable offside decision robbed her of a hat-trick, and already she is the Spirit’s top scorer with six goals.
Fleeting is one of the main reasons the team are optimistic about their chances of reaching the playoffs that will decide the destination of this year’s title. In a team peppered with internationals from the US, China and Brazil — the three superpowers of the women’s game — she is fast becoming the star.
“She is so brilliant with her head,” said her teammate Shannon McMillan, the American international striker. “She doesn’t just get her head on it, she gets power behind it. With that little snap, she rifles it. I just have to get the ball in her vicinity and let her do the rest.”
Having arrived two months into last season, Fleeting found the pace and the physical side of the all-American game very different to what she had been used to during her years scoring nearly 300 goals for Ayr United. Her introduction was not enough to save a faltering Spirit team that would finish second-bottom of the league but, by the last few games of the summer, some of the hardcore fans were so impressed by the new signing they began waving Scottish flags in her honour at the Torero Stadium.
She went home determined to return stronger, fitter and better prepared for the fray. Between a weights regime and plyometrics to improve her power and strength, she is better equipped for battle this time than before.
“I’m definitely enjoying it way more than I did last season,” says Fleeting. “I think I just needed time to settle in and adjust to living in a strange country. It’s hard to adjust to everything that goes along with being so far away from home. I’ve always been a sort of home person, so to be that far away from my family and my boyfriend, that was by far the toughest part of the move. This season, things have kind of gone my way, so I’ve enjoyed living here more.
“As for the football side of things, I knew I could work hard and maybe control it once I got the chance. But there was nothing I could do to control being so far away from home. That remains the toughest part of this. Phone calls and e-mails — you keep in touch any way you can, but being so far behind (British Summer Time) makes it hard to find a moment when you can conveniently speak on the phone.”
EIGHT TIME zones and six thousand miles away, there is a danger that Fleeting’s impact is being lessened somewhat by distance. After all, this is somebody who is cutting it in what is basically the Serie A of women’s football, the place where the world’s best players come to measure themselves against their peers.
In its third season, the eight-team WUSA is partially owned by three cable television companies, Time Warner Cable, Cox Communications Inc and Comcast Corp, and by 19 members of the American women’s team who are essentially the sole reason for its existence. It was set up on the back of the huge audiences that tuned in to see those players win the 1999 World Cup final, and to cash in on the upsurge in interest caused by Brandi Chastain’s topless goal celebration — she stripped down to her sports bra — after scoring the winning penalty against China.
The American superstars actually took a pay cut from $85,000 a year to $60,000, when the league needed to restructure financially after the second season proved to be less of a success than the first. Like most US professional leagues, there is a strict salary cap to avoid any Old Firm-type domination in a season which runs from April to August, and no team is allowed to spend more than $595,750 per season paying its squad of 16 players. This is why the team that finished with the worst record in 2001, Carolina Courage, could turn around and win the competition last year.
All this means that every game Fleeting plays is live on television, and some of her American colleagues are more famous in these parts than any of the men’s side which reached the quarter-finals of last summer’s World Cup. Yet, in the dressing room her teammates initially knew so little about where she came from, and who she was, that their first instinct was to nickname her ‘Shrek’, the only reference point they had for her accent. These days she is dubbed Air Scotland, such is her ability to leap like basketball legend Michael Jordan.
“I didn’t feel pressure at all, being the first Scottish woman to play here. I wasn’t put under pressure by anybody,” she says. “I didn’t know what to expect, whether I was going to be successful here or not. I was really coming out with no expectations, just determined to make the most of the experience. I didn’t know if I would be sent home early or if I would be back this season, or what was going to happen.
“It did mean a lot to me, though, coming out here representing Scotland. I just hope that me playing out here will mean women’s football in Scotland gets some more recognition and a few of my teammates and friends might get the chance to follow me out.
“That would mean something, because there are a lot of very good young players at home who are trying to grow. I think in Scotland we just need to get more recognition for what we are doing. We have so many people who work so hard behind the scenes in the women’s department of the SFA, and they work so hard to try to improve the women’s game, that we are going in the right direction. We just need some more publicity for our games, and more support too.”
She has a point. Were any American international able to boast Fleeting’s recent record of eight goals in her last two Euro 2005 qualifying matches captaining her country — three against Ukraine, five against Portugal, taking her tally to 88 in 66 games — that woman would most likely be doing the rounds of the late-night talk shows, joshing with Leno and Letterman, and entertaining multiple endorsement offers. Imagine what they think then when the 22-year-old tells them that she has to post home videos of Spirit matches so her parents can see her in action. Perhaps it’s no coincidence, either, that her richest vein of form has coincided with successive visits from her parents, her cousins and her boyfriend Colin Stewart, the recently out-of-contract Kilmarnock goalkeeper, who witnessed her heroics last weekend.
“It’s always great to have people there watching you. Maybe, subconsciously, having somebody from home in the stands does spur you on a little bit. Not consciously, though. I mean, if I could score two goals in every game I would, whether Colin was there or not.”
TWENTY-FIVE summers have passed since Jim Fleeting spent five months traversing America as one of the most consistent defenders in a Tampa Bay Rowdies team where Rodney Marsh was the franchise player. In the final of the star-studded North American Soccer League that year, the Rowdies were beaten 3-1 by the New York Cosmos before a crowd of 74,901 at Giants Stadium in New Jersey.
Her father would go on to manage Kilmarnock, and the Scotland women’s side, and is now head of football development at the SFA, but it was his own fond memories of that season that he imparted when he discovered that the San Diego Spirit had been passed a video of his daughter’s four goals in an international against Wales, and wanted to offer her a three-year contract.
“My dad thought it was something I had to do,” says Fleeting. “He knew a bit more about what the scene was like out here, and how passionate they were about the women’s game. He knew I would enjoy it once I wasn’t too homesick, and that it would be something I would always remember. I know that’s the way he feels about the time he had out here. He also told me it’s an opportunity not many people have had or will get, and any other girl at home would take it.
“I never thought I could get paid to do this until the day I got the phone call to come over. I never imagined it in my wildest dreams. I was just finishing my exams at university, hoping to graduate and go straight into PE teaching. I knew about the American league, that it was up and running and all. I just didn’t think it had anything to do with me.
“I never thought for a minute of playing football professionally. And it’s still very strange getting paid for something I had always done as a hobby. It’s something we do at home because we enjoy playing, not because it’s going to pay the bills and everything.
“To be actually given money to do it was a huge bonus, and to be paid to do it over here in the sunshine was even better. When you come here and see what goes on at each game, the number of supporters who come out and the whole scene around it, anybody would like playing in a stadium filled with people. It beats playing in front of 10 people, like I used to back home for my club team.”
SUNSHINE IS a recurring theme in the conversation. Several times she mentions how keen she is to make the most of the abundance of rays on offer in southern California before heading home for a Scottish winter. The difference in climate that she experiences is as extreme as the change in professions.
She will spend this offseason just like she did the last, working to amass the days required to finish her time as a probationary teacher. Having spent the summer signing autographs every day, playing before 7,000 screaming fans, and dealing with massive media attention, she walked into the classroom at St Michael’s, her alma mater, and apart from one or two inquiries from children anxious to know about America, she “became just another teacher in the school”.
Fleeting would not have it any other way, because she does not find the notion of flitting so quickly between such vastly separate worlds difficult at all. Why would she? Just because football now yields her a salary in the region of $30,000 for five months’ work, and huge adulation in California, her reasons for playing the game have not changed since her childhood when she learned to mix it with her cousin, Jim, and her younger brother, Barry. Even though her first organised matches with Cunninghame Boys (who had to fight to ensure she was allowed to play in their league) led to further success at schools level, and, ultimately, a senior international debut at the absurdly young age of 15, something was sparked during those kickarounds.
“I suppose the interest stemmed from my dad, but it was something he never pushed me to do. He wasn’t one of those pushy fathers. It was just something I did by myself with my brother and my cousin. The three of us always seemed to be playing together. I found it was something I enjoyed doing. I mean, we were playing just because we loved to play.”
In Bend It Like Beckham, the hit film’s two teenage heroines head off into the sunset and a career in the WUSA. For Fleeting, a fantastical storyline has become reality, and will continue today with a home match against the San Jose CyberRays. She truly is living the California dream
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Fully paid member of the Tommy Scott TA
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Total Posts: 709 | Joined Mar. 2002 | Posted on: 10:48 am on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Mick North Croy
GET A LIFE!!! |
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Mick. Support the TAMB Sunshine Appeal
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Total Posts: 1937 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 1:11 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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BigDaveJ
GET A LIFE!!! |
Great interview.
She really is on her way to becoming one of the best female players in the world! 
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Total Posts: 2080 | Joined Jan. 2002 | Posted on: 1:11 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Jerky
Opinionated Wind Bag |
Mick, you wouldn't be like that if you'd seen Julie in action. I'm convinced she could hold her own in the men's game. On that subject, is there actually any law about women playing for mens teams?
Cheers for posting that Bridie, i'll read it when i get home and have more time.
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STOI!!
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Total Posts: 226 | Joined July 2002 | Posted on: 1:32 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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bridie boy
GET A LIFE!!! |
Quote: from Mick North Croy on 1:11 pm on June 30, 2003
:prodsthescruffyguy:
Scuse me sir, can you move on please, you're in the womens forum, you want AOB, it's due to have another arguement in 4 minutes if you hurry
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Total Posts: 709 | Joined Mar. 2002 | Posted on: 1:52 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Big Loon Kev
GET A LIFE!!! |
Quote: from bridie boy on 1:52 pm on June 30, 2003
Quote: from Mick North Croy on 1:11 pm on June 30, 2003
:prodsthescruffyguy:
Scuse me sir, can you move on please, you're in the womens forum, you want AOB, it's due to have another arguement in 4 minutes if you hurry
BB thats a scandelous ruthless thing to say!!!!!! 
you surely meant 3 minutes 
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Total Posts: 1269 | Joined Oct. 2002 | Posted on: 2:33 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Mick North Croy
GET A LIFE!!! |
 ye see, I have had trouble sleeping recently, so I came in here on the offchance that I would be cured, and lo & behold, before I knew it I...
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Mick. Support the TAMB Sunshine Appeal
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Total Posts: 1937 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 2:47 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Big Loon Kev
GET A LIFE!!! |
Quote: from Mick North Croy on 2:47 pm on June 30, 2003
ye see, I have had trouble sleeping recently, so I came in here on the offchance that I would be cured, and lo & behold, before I knew it I...
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A Founder Member of the "Pistol Pete" Piano Bar Tartan Army
Official Photographer of the EASTA Waterpistol Militia
"Magic Darts!"
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Total Posts: 1269 | Joined Oct. 2002 | Posted on: 2:57 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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P1
GET A LIFE!!! |
Its about time wummin in fitbaw had some respect!! Well done to Julie Fleeting!!
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Total Posts: 382 | Joined May 2003 | Posted on: 4:22 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Tartan Sheep
GET A LIFE!!! |
ahem :cough:
We've got that Julie Fleeting
Woah that Julie Fleeting
We've got that Julie Fleeting
And she scores scores scores go-o-o-o-oals!
Thanks for posting that Lino Boy
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Total Posts: 2198 | Joined Sep. 2001 | Posted on: 4:58 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Big Loon Kev
GET A LIFE!!! |
lino?
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A Founder Member of the "Pistol Pete" Piano Bar Tartan Army
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Total Posts: 1269 | Joined Oct. 2002 | Posted on: 5:58 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Joncutler
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Quote: from P1 on 4:22 pm on June 30, 2003
Its about time wummin in fitbaw had some respect!! Well done to Julie Fleeting!!
That could end on Sunday at Duncan Street Memorial Park. Womens football RIP.
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Total Posts: 310 | Joined April 2002 | Posted on: 7:40 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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BigDaveJ
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Quote: from Big Loon Kev on 5:58 pm on June 30, 2003
lino?
Aye Kev. Bridie's other nickname is Linoboy!!
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Total Posts: 2080 | Joined Jan. 2002 | Posted on: 8:21 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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Big Loon Kev
GET A LIFE!!! |
lino as in the floor covering
or lino as in the pre-pubescebt leader of the thundercats?
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Total Posts: 1269 | Joined Oct. 2002 | Posted on: 8:42 pm on June 30, 2003 | IP
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BigDaveJ
GET A LIFE!!! |
Lino as in the floor covering!
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Total Posts: 2080 | Joined Jan. 2002 | Posted on: 10:01 am on July 1, 2003 | IP
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bridie boy
GET A LIFE!!! |
Damn I thought I was a Thunder-thunder-thundercat hooooooohhhhhhh
:mmmmmcheetarah:
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Total Posts: 709 | Joined Mar. 2002 | Posted on: 10:41 am on July 1, 2003 | IP
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P1
GET A LIFE!!! |
Quote: from Joncutler on 12:40 am on July 1, 2003
Quote: from P1 on 4:22 pm on June 30, 2003
Its about time wummin in fitbaw had some respect!! Well done to Julie Fleeting!!
That could end on Sunday at Duncan Street Memorial Park. Womens football RIP.
no chance of that happnin, no for the Ho Ha Honies anyway ha ha! who r ye anyway?
(Edited by P1 at 5:11 pm on July 1, 2003)
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hobbes
Talks too much |
I saw a bit of the Spirit's game last week. Fleeting looked good, set up the first goal. There was a saltire in the crowd as well.
I was just going to say that there's no way a woman could play with the men at the top flight. I was supposed to go see China play Canada near my hometown, but after 9/11 the Chinese cancelled the trip. So the women played the U18 provincial team (and we are not a big or populous province) instead and lost 4-3. The women's first touch was stronger and they read the game well, but one long diagonal ball switching the attack to the other flank and the women's defence was stretched and the winger was running past the outside back and crossing for a glorious chance.
The pace and the strength of the men made a huge difference and overcame a lot of tactical and technical short-comings. They phyically dominated the midfield and used long balls over the top to beat the offside trap, knowing they'd be able to run onto the ball.
None of which matters. The women are great and play an attractive brand of soccer, more posession, no diving, fewer cynical fouls. They still get stuck in and can play with passion. It's a nice change, but men's and women's soccer are two different sports. The women are also more accessible. They play for the love of the game, not the money and they appreciate the support that they get.
Mexico opened the doors to Azteca for their World Cup playoff against Japan last week and drew 100,000 supporters. If an old-fashioned nation like Mexico can rally behind their ladies, surely all Scots can get beyond a "girls can't play" mentality.
cheers,
hobbes
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Julie Fleeting
