Page 12 - Women's Soccer Scene Issue No.4 2022-23

Tessel Middag and Athina Varnava have collected the September 2022-23 Scottish Women’s
Premier League (SWPL) Player of the Month awards.
The versatile Middag, who played in defence during September, makes it two from two for
Rangers after Danielsson won the August SWPL award. Stirling University’s Varnava won the
SWPL 2 club vote, the first time the club have had a winner of the accolade since September 2017.
Rangers continued their fine league form in September, scoring 10 goals and conceding
none against Partick Thistle and Motherwell. They were also narrowly defeated by Benfica over
two legs in the Second Round of the UEFA Women’s Champions League.
Middag featured in both SWPL matches, playing a full 180 minutes and grabbing an assist.
She played in the centre of defence, out with her normal role in the midfield, helping to keep two
clean sheets.
In SWPL 2, September saw a turn in fortune for Stirling University who went unbeaten.
They first defeated Montrose 4-1 in the Sky Sports Cup 1st Round and then grabbed a point away
to Kilmarnock a week later. This was after they lost their opening three league matches,
including a 5-0 loss to Montrose on the 7th of August.
Varnava played a crucial role for Stirling University, scoring the equaliser against
Montrose and providing the assist in their 1-1 draw at Kilmarnock.
The nominees for the September SWPL award were Lauren Davidson (Glasgow City),
Jacynta Galabadaarachchi (Celtic), and Alana Marshall (Spartans) and for the SWPL 2 award
the nominees were Dionne Brown (Gartcairn) and Alex Middleton (Kilmarnock).

The Spartans Football Club is delighted to announce that its Scottish Women’s Premier League
and Girls age group teams have agreed a new sponsorship deal with FNZ, the global wealth
management platform, for at least the next two seasons.
The sponsorship, which is being announced during the Scottish Women and Girls in Sport
week, builds on the existing support that FNZ has provided the Spartans youth teams over the
last two years and now extends to the Women’s first team.
FNZ’s sponsorship will ensure that all women’s teams – from the 1st XI through to the age
grade teams (10-18 years old) – will benefit from top class sports facilities and will wear FNZ on
their playing and training kit.
The teams will continue to play and train at Spartans’ Ainslie Park complex, which has
superb facilities and will this week host the Women’s Under 19 European Championship
qualifying tournament involving Spain, Finland, Switzerland and Scotland.
In addition, many of FNZ’s 1,000 Edinburgh based employees will volunteer their skills
and expertise to help create STEM activities and projects for community members with
additional educational initiatives such as career development guidance, interview training, CV
development and financial technology mentoring.
Craig Graham MBE, Chairman of Spartans Football Club, commented: “We are delighted
to announce our partnership with FNZ. As one of our largest local employers we are very grateful
for their investment. It will really help us meet the demand for growth in our Girls section and
for them to have fun in their football journey.
“The investment also helps us maintain a high-performance environment for our Women’s
team through an enhanced approach to sports science and individual development. Our positive
start to the season has certainly been helped with the investment we have been able to make into
addition technical coaching, performance analysis and our elite performance Macron kit. Quite
simply the partnership gives so many opportunities to enable our players and coaches to be the
best they can be.”
news@womenssoccerscene.co.uk