The Barra women who journey hundreds of miles to play soccer

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Two sisters are making round trips of greater than three hundred miles each week to play football.

Charlotte, thirteen, and Catriona, 12, O’Carroll tour from their domestic in Barra to Glasgow on Fridays to train with Glasgow City FC’s beneath 15s.

They play for the group on Saturdays, and Charlotte flies again domestic to the Western Isles on Sundays.

Meanwhile, Catriona stays on in Glasgow for training with a Scotland girl beneath 14 nearby squads on Mondays.

The Barra women who journey hundreds of miles to play soccer 1

The women signed for Glasgow City’s education academy in June, the remaining 12 months, when they had been spotted with the aid of a scout. Charlotte is a striker, and Catriona a midfielder.

Since January, Catriona has been receiving one-to-one training at Scotland’s country full stadium, Hampden, during the day on Mondays before joining an underneath 14 regional squad for education in the evenings.

She flies home on Tuesday mornings to get returned to the house and her collage paintings.

Islander, thirteen, signs for St Johnstone
Boy’s 320-mile ride to play for the group
The sisters, who additionally play soccer in Barra, come from a soccer-loving own family.

Their dad John, a builder, is an SFA-certified referee and coaches boys’ football. He accompanies his daughters on their trips to Glasgow.

The sisters’ brothers Michael, seven, and John, 10, also play soccer, and large sister Kayleanne, 22, and a resort supervisor, became regarded to kick a ball around in her young people.

The siblings are passionate about Liverpool FC supporters.

Every 2nd week, John accompanies his daughters for his or her football education in Glasgow.

One of Catriona’s journeys for practice with Scotland at Hampden became accompanied by way of BBC Scotland’s The Nine.

However, it grew to become out to be one of these activities in which the adventure did not go as planned, expanding the gap worried about making it around a ride of 500 miles.

The flight from Barra’s famous seashore runway to Glasgow turned canceled after they had arrived at the airport.

John and Catriona had to then take a minibus to seize a ferry to Eriskay and then a taxi to Benbecula’s airport for a flight to Glasgow.

The journey took 5 hours.

John says that as Catriona’s football profession progresses and the extent of schooling and video games becomes more difficult, she will spend extra time far away from home.

Her dad says: “She will be right here (Glasgow) a day or days early due to the fact when you have a vital game, you have to be prepared mentally and physically. You should be rested.”

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Mum Eileen, a primary school trainer who runs her private dance school with approximately 60 scholars, concedes the journeys are expensive.

She provides: “We’ve been fortunate sufficient to get a small quantity of investment, but virtually it’s miles simply ourselves seeking to fund this.”

Catriona says the journeys to and from domestic can be difficult.

“Sometimes when it receives sincerely difficult I suppose: ‘Why do not I simply move?’ she says.

“But then I think I do not need to do that because all my buddies are on Barra, and I could pass over them.”

John says upping sticks and moving to Glasgow could now not be smooth.

“We’d uproot the whole own family,” he says. “We were given a existence here in Barra.

“But we’re going to hold making the journeys due to their love for soccer.

“Catriona specifically just lives, breathes, sleeps soccer,” he says, including that he needed to forestall her kicking a ball around in the flat they stay in at the same time as in Glasgow for fear of demanding their neighbours.

“She changed into seeking to reproduction a trick that she had visible on YouTube.”