Sheila Margaret Begbie (born 1957) is a Scottish former

footballer A football player or footballer is a sportsperson who plays one of the different types of football. The main types of football are association football, American football, Canadian football, Australian rules football, Gaelic football, rugby ...

and sports administrator who was Director of Domestic Rugby at the

Scottish Rugby Union The Scottish Rugby Union (SRU; gd, Aonadh Rugbaidh na h-Alba) is the governing body of rugby union in Scotland. Styled as Scottish Rugby, it is the second oldest Rugby Union, having been founded in 1873. The SRU oversees the national league s ...

(SRU) until 2021. She played as a

central defender In the sport of association football, a defender is an outfield position whose primary role is to stop attacks during the game and prevent the opposition from scoring. Centre-backs are usually positioned in pairs, with one full-back on either s ...

for

Edinburgh Dynamos The Edinburgh Dynamos Ladies Football Club was a leading association football team in Scotland. The club was founded in the 1940s by Linda Clements and Mary Leslie, who had formerly played for the Edinburgh City Girls F.C. The Girls team disbanded ...

and the Scotland women's national team, making 25 international appearances after debuting for Scotland aged 15. She later entered football administration, spending sixteen years as head of Girls' and Women's Football at the Scottish Football Association (SFA) before switching to

rugby union Rugby union, commonly known simply as rugby, is a close-contact team sport that originated at Rugby School in the first half of the 19th century. One of the two codes of rugby football, it is based on running with the ball in hand. In it ...

with the SRU in 2014.

Early life and football career

Sheila Begbie grew up in the

Drylaw Drylaw is an area in the north west of Edinburgh, the capital of Scotland, located between Blackhall and Granton. It forms the community of Drylaw–Telford. Drylaw used to belong to the younger branch of the Foresters of Corstorphine. Former ...

area of

Edinburgh Edinburgh ( ; gd, Dùn Èideann ) is the capital city of Scotland and one of its 32 council areas. Historically part of the county of Midlothian (interchangeably Edinburghshire before 1921), it is located in Lothian on the southern shore of t ...

and attended Craigroyston High School in the early 1970s. She began playing football and other sports in the street, in an era when this was considered unusual for a girl. At the age of 13, she heard about a local women's football team, Edinburgh Dynamos – one of only eight such teams in Scotland at the time – and began to play in organised football. Aged 15, she made her debut for the Scotland national team in 1973, going on to make 25 appearances as a defender. Her first appearance was in an 8–0 defeat against

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

in Nuneaton, but she captained Scotland in their first ever win against England, 2–1 in Dundee in 1977. She scored for Scotland and also conceded an own goal in a 3–1 defeat to

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

at the

San Siro Stadio Giuseppe Meazza, commonly known as San Siro, is a football stadium in the San Siro district of Milan, Italy, which is the home of A.C. Milan and Inter Milan. It has a seating capacity of 80,018, making it one of the largest stadiums i ...

in September 1974. Although she was later offered opportunities to play semi-professionally in Italy and the United States, Begbie decided to stay in Scotland and concentrate on her career as a physical education teacher. In 1995, she became one of the first Scottish women to obtain an A Licence for coaching.

Administrative career

Begbie was Girls' and Women's Football Co-ordinator with the TeamSport Scotland initiative of

Sportscotland Sportscotland (officially styled sport), formerly the Scottish Sports Council, is the national agency for sport in Scotland. The Scottish Sports Council was established in 1972 by royal charter. The body works in partnership with public, pri ...

prior to becoming Head of Girls' and Women's Football at the Scottish Football Association (SFA) in 1998. She was involved in the establishment of the SFA Women's National Performance Centre at the

University of Stirling The University of Stirling (, gd, Oilthigh Shruighlea (abbreviated as Stir or Shruiglea, in post-nominals) is a public university in Stirling, Scotland, founded by royal charter in 1967. It is located in the Central Belt of Scotland, built ...

. She also worked with

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

in a number of roles, including as head of their Women's Committee and as a Match Delegate. Begbie left the SFA in 2014, switching sports to take up a new appointment with the

(SRU) as Head of Women's Rugby. In 2017 she took up a new role at the SRU, becoming Director of Domestic Rugby, with a remit to develop the sport at grassroots level. She will retire from the SRU in the summer of 2021.

Honours

Begbie was appointed a

Member of the Order of the British Empire The Most Excellent Order of the British Empire is a British order of chivalry, rewarding contributions to the arts and sciences, work with charitable and welfare organisations, and public service outside the civil service. It was established o ...

(MBE) in the

2001 New Year Honours The 2001 New Year Honours List is one of the annual New Year Honours, a part of the British honours system, where New Year's Day, 1 January, is marked in several Commonwealth countries by appointing new members of orders of chivalry and recipient ...

list, for services to women's football.United Kingdom list:

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Begbie, Sheila Living people 1957 births Footballers from Edinburgh Scottish women's footballers Scotland women's international footballers Women association football executives Rugby union executives Members of the Order of the British Empire Women's association football central defenders Date of birth missing (living people)