Name: Catherine A Macleod

Nickname: I don’t have one

Sport/Discipline: Football

Sporting Hero: I have two – Chris Hoy and Andy Murray. I love them both because they are incredible athletes in different ways.



Best Sporting Achievement: reaching the semi-finals of the last island games in the Isle of Wight. Although we lost the bronze medal game to Greenland 1-0, it was an incredible achievement for a team who don’t play regular 11 a side football to make the semi-finals of an international competition. 


How are you preparing for the island games?


I am working on my fitness by doing Fartlek training every Monday, Wednesday and Friday in the school gyms at lunchtime. I then have football training with the team every Tuesday night, Thursday night and Saturday afternoon. 

What are your targets for the games? It would be great to make it out of the group and into the semi-finals again, but this is a huge ask given that we have Isle of Man and Gotland in our group who have both won silver medals at previous island games. I think a realistic target is to win two out of our four games.



What are you most looking forward to at the games?


We have worked hard as a team over the last three years to prepare for this competition so I am very much looking forward to putting all of this training into action on the pitch. I am also looking forward to the whole experience of just being at the games – it is great to support other athletes who are in the Western Isles squad competing in other sports and it’s also good to meet athletes from other parts of the world.