As the Aberdeen FC Women’s side look forward to a well-earned short rest next week as they begin their winter break, everyone involved with the team would like to wish Amy Strath all the very best for the future as she has played her final game.

Amy has decided to depart the Club to focus on her career in personal training.

Co-Manager Emma Hunter paid this tribute:

“Amy Strath played an integral part in the success of AFC Women and we all wish all the very best. Amy is a fantastic player and I do hope to see her playing again in the future, but she was also very open and honest about her Mental Health and I want to thank her for being so brave in sharing her story.

“I know that she has helped so many not just at the Club, but externally also. Amy will always be part of the AFC family and I would like to take this opportunity to thank her for her commitment and hard work over the last couple of years.”

Central defender Strath started her footballing journey as a youngster with Aberdeen Ladies, where she played with some of the current squad including Kelly Forrest and Loren Campbell. “I’ve played with Aberdeen right from the start, since I was 12 until the day I left. I just worked my way up the age groups and eventually started playing with the ladies’ team. When I was 16, I decided to try something different. I applied for scholarships to play out of the country and that was when America came up”.

Amy combined football and study in the States where she gained valuable experiences both on and off the pitch. “I was in the States for five and a half years. You can play for four years along with your education and then I took on a coaching role so I could stay on and gain an extra degree. I played for a semi-pro team in Kansas, which was incredible. I got to play and travel all over America which was a great experience. One game you were playing in freezing cold conditions and the next it was roasting hot as you travelled between the states”.

In the USA, Strath saw first-hand the differences in how the women’s game has developed compared with back home. “The game is massively different over there in the way the youngest players are coached all the way up. The young players have a pathway from a young age up through College and University and there are so many possibilities of where to develop and take your game.”

The next stop on Amy’s footballing travels came in the form of a spell playing professionally in the Icelandic Premier League with Fylkir.

“I graduated in May. I wasn’t supposed to go back until July, but my coach got in contact and said that there was an agent that was interested. I had posted a highlights video on Facebook and he had seen that and liked it and it just went from there. Two weeks later, I was back home and then about a week after that, I was over in Iceland playing professionally”.

The move to professional football was one which Amy enjoyed, although it came with a lot of extra pressures.

“The hardest part was that it was halfway through their season and my first game was three days after I arrived. It was a lot of pressure moving from playing college football to being professional. There was so much more to it than just playing football – the sponsors, interviews, the pressure to deliver was much greater. It was also a strict routine in terms of training and watching what you eat and how you live. I was playing in front of a couple of thousand people where I was used to playing on front of a couple of hundred in the States so that was a lot of extra pressure too”.

Amy, who has made 18 AFCW appearances, was part of the Aberdeen squad who won back-to-back league titles and promotions.

Thank you Amy for everything, and good luck!