Colin Bell is determined to create a culture change at Aberdeen FC Women as he bids to make the Dons a major force in Scottish football.
The Dons have aimed high after appointing the 63-year-old Women’s Champions League winner as Clint Lancaster’s successor in June.
Bell arrived at the club after five years in charge of the South Korean women’s national team and he is determined to build a Dons team capable of competing at the highest level.
The new manager knows the size of the task has taken on but it is a challenge he is ready to embrace.
Bell said: “In men’s football it is Aberdeen, Celtic and Rangers in Scotland but in women’s football Aberdeen is playing a smaller role at the moment.
“When you look at this club, its tradition, the Cup Winners’ Cup and Sir Alex Ferguson, the challenge of bringing the club that I think has huge potential and history, up to that level in the women’s side appealed to me.
“It is going to be a big challenge to make Aberdeen an elite women’s club.
“In some areas I’ve been thrown into the deep end but trying to create something that’s not been done before is exciting.”
Bell insists Dons have to break the cycle
The deep end Bell alludes to can be traced back to the day of his appointment.
Hours before his appointment was announced on June 26 the Dons confirmed the departure of three key players.
Striker Bayley Hutchison, the SWPL’s leading scorer last season, four-time players’ player of the year Eilidh Shore and defender Jessica Broadrick all turned down contract extensions to join Hearts.
Bell understands why they opted to move on and believes the club has to change if it is to break the cycle of watching developed talent leave for pastures new.
He said: “It was disappointing the players left but on the other hand the circumstances are understandable.
“The reality is, at the moment in this league it is not an even playing field. You have got Celtic, Rangers, Glasgow City, Hibs and Hearts all full-time then the rest of us.
“That’s why I can understand why players who have had success in the league are being picked up by these full-time clubs.
“That makes it difficult for us to hold our own but that’s the reality check of where we are and the work we have ahead of us.
“What can Aberdeen achieve in the next couple of years to ensure that stops happening?
“The answer is we have to become professional. My view is that needs to be sooner rather than later otherwise we will keep going round in a circle.
“We have a very young team and players who hopefully have a future ahead of them will develop.
“But if we stay in the situation we are in at the moment they will be picked up again by Celtic, Rangers, Glasgow City, Hearts and Hibs.
“It that keeps happening we can’t progress.”
Early training sessions are the norm now at Cormack Park
The Dons are semi-professional for now but that has not stopped the new manager from implementing changes of his own.
Bell has wasted little time in stamping his authority on the team.
Evening training sessions are a thing of the past for the squad at Cormack Park with an early morning training regime now in place.
The Englishman’s rationale for such a drastic timetable change is crystal clear.
He said: “The whole structure of the women’s football team here needs to be more intense.
“We need more training time, more hours on the pitch and more contact time. It’s basic stuff – the more you train, the more ball contact you have, the better you become.
“If we can do that we can become more attractive for players coming in within the league or coming from abroad.
“Professional status is key. All of my contacts I have in the women’s game are all in professional status.
“That’s where we need to get to and changes are happening.
“We’ve changed our training schedule and times. Training used to be from 7.30pm until 9pm and the girls were sharing a pitch.
“I refused categorially to share a pitch so that meant a difficult situation for the club and the Community Trust.
“I had the idea to train early morning and we now start training at 6.45am and finish at 8.15am.
“Theoretically I have the choice then of two pitches if I wanted because obviously nobody else is here.
“It also gives me more contact time with the girls. We’ve bumped up the training schedule, we have more days training and it is a big change for them.
“But I think it is a necessary change which relieves the pressure for everybody.”
Further changes will be coming
The women’s boss has not had his challenges to seek for various reasons but he is already adamant next summer will be different.
Circumstances have made pre-season a challenging one but the players, if they did not know already, face increased demands from their new manager.
Bell knows what it takes to be successful and his players already know what is expected of them.
The Dons boss said: “Pre-season was interrupted by players not being there, coming in late, or missing as they were on holiday.
“All these things I’ve inherited will never happen again as long as I’m here.
“We talk about professionalism and getting to a professional status.
“Players will hopefully come to Aberdeen in the future and that is their job. They won’t have to do anything else other than play football.
“That is the aim and the goal the club has and hopefully it happens sooner rather than later.
“But for me professionalism means attitude.
“I said to the girls when I first took over what the definition means for me. I had a professional attitude towards football when I was 10 years old.
“It means doing everything you can to perform at the highest level possible. That inherits your lifestyle, nutrition, training, attitude towards what we are trying to do.”
‘I’m not going to drop my standards’
Having won the Champions League, the premier prize in the club game, with Frankfurt in 2015, and managed both the Republic of Ireland and South Korea, Bell has the CV to command respect.
If it was not clear already, his demands are high and he expects his players to commit fully to his methods.
Francesca Ogilvie was one of the first to do so, signing a two-year extension following a discussion about the club’s future with her new manager.
The Aberdeen manager said: “It’s a mindset change and this process is still ongoing.
“I’ll see in the next few weeks and months the players who really take it on board but up to now the girls’ work ethic has been good.
“They have made this step in early mornings which is a promising start.
“It was my idea and I approached the club to get their backing but I also needed the backing of the players.
“I put this idea in motion but without their backing I would be the false person for this job.
“I know what I want and I’m not going to drop my standards. That’s what I’m trying in instil at every level and I’m still in that process.
“I’m respectful but I need to push people at times and I’ll continue to do that until we’re at a level I think is satisfactory to the point we can actually achieve something.”
Short-term aim is survival
Bell’s long-term goal is to turn Aberdeen into a force in women’s football but he is not kidding himself.
After a summer of change the short-term target is SWPL safety and finding a new base to build from.
League reconstruction means the bottom three teams in the 12-team SWPL will be relegated to SWPL2 at the end of the campaign as the top flight changes to a 10-team league from 2025.
Bell said: “My first task is to keep the team in the league as it is going to be a tough season.
“We need to make sure now going into this season that we don’t get into a relegation battle, get through the season well and then have to make that step as far as I’m concerned.
“It will take us a few matches to get up to the level of fitness we need but in that time you have to get points somewhere on the board.
“It’s a balancing act we have got to get right. It’s not easy.
With Rangers visiting Balmoral Stadium on Sunday for the opening game of the SWPL season the challenge remains a formidable one.
Bell, however, remains optimistic.
He said: “Rangers are a very strong team and very well coached.
“Individually they are strong and fit, tactically they are very good, they rotate positions, and everybody knows what their job is in the team.
“As I’ve said it is not an even playing field so we’ve got to try to utilise the strength we have through good organisation with the ball and without the ball and try to make life as difficult as we possibly can for Rangers.
“I’ve never lost a game before it has been played so I don’t want that defeatist mentality.
“Nobody expects us to get anything from this game, that’s a fact if you look at it realistically, but that gives us a chance.”
Meanwhile, the Dons have signed Hearts defender Gracie Robertson on a season-long loan deal from Hearts.
Robertson has been capped eight times for Scotland at under-17 level.
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