A TALENTED West Fife youngster has set her sights on emulating her ‘inspiration’ Caroline Weir – with the help of two former Pars stars.

Carnegie Primary School pupil Ava Crawford, who just over two years ago swapped dance moves for those on the football pitch, joined Heart of Midlothian’s academy recently having played with Dunfermline Girls previously.

Already part of part of the Scottish FA’s East Region under-13 squad, the 11-year-old, who plays in central midfield, had been taking part in one-to-one coaching sessions at the Joe Cardle Academy, which is based near the family home in Duloch, when the ex-Athletic favourite got in touch with old team-mate Andy Kirk.

The Northern Irishman is now in charge of the Hearts women’s side and, taking up the story, proud mum Katrina explained: “Ava does Box Soccer and is a member of the Joe Cardle Academy as well.

“Joe is still friends with Andy Kirk so Joe had contacted him and said I’ve got this girl at the academy, she’s amazing, and I think you should come and see her. If you don’t sign her, someone else is going to.

“Andy Kirk sent out his scouts to come and see her at a couple of one-to-one sessions she had done up at the Joe Cardle Academy and within a couple of weeks, she’d gone to a couple of trials and they wanted to sign her straight away. They just thought she was a perfect fit for the team.

“We’re clearly totally biased but we’re really proud of her!

“She’s had a great time with the Dunfermline Girls. She absolutely loved the teams there and the coaching was great but with Hearts having the academy and the fact she trains at the Oriam, which is just an amazing facility, she is able to see some of the Scottish national players training at the same time as her, which for her is just so inspiring.

“She wants to be one of these women later on in her life so to be able watch them play and train at the same time, for her, is just the best thing ever.”

Katrina, who hopes Ava’s progress will provide a positive message and encourage girls starting out in the sport that they can do just as well as the boys, continued: “Just over two years ago, she played in her very first tournament with the school and she didn’t really know what she was doing at that time if I’m honest because she had no idea whether she liked football or not.

“She had just qualified to go to the Worlds with her street dancing crew, which was amazing, but she just decided after this little tournament that, actually, I don’t want to do dancing anymore, I just love football. Therefore, she gave up the opportunity to go to the Worlds competition.

“We managed to find her a wee team with Dunfermline Girls. After about a year, she was put forward by the Dunfermline Girls team as a trialist for the Scottish national East region performance teams. She did her trial, she then got invited back to a second trial, and she was very lucky at that time to get into the team. At that time, she was the youngest trialist, so did really well and we were really proud of her, especially having only played for just over a year at that point.

“Her aspirations are, eventually, that she wants to play for Scotland. That’s her thing.

“She’s in the pathway already because she plays for the East region so she hopes that that will help and she’ll continue to work through that pathway alongside playing with Hearts, so that she can continue and progress and become one of the Scottish footballers at some point in the future.”

Ava, who is in Primary 7, isn’t the only member of the family with football goals; younger brother Max, seven, is part of Hibernian’s development academy, while sister Poppy, six, also plays and has said she’s “going to stay with my football team until Barcelona come and get me!”

Katrina said that Ava’s aspiration is to play for Manchester City, with whom Dunfermline-born Weir plays, who remains her biggest inspiration.

“She’s actually met Caroline Weir twice,” Katrina added. “She met her just under two years ago; it was shortly after her football tournament so she had the opportunity to hear her story and she is quite a big inspiration to Ava. She was somebody she got to meet early on, and for the young girls she’s quite relatable and makes them realise it’s all possible.

“Hearts, I have to say, with the appointment of Andy Kirk, it seems like they’re putting quite a lot of funding, a lot of time and are investing a lot in the girls just now in their academy.

“Since we went along there, we got an amazing sense that they were going to look after her, that they’ve got her best interests at heart, and that they really want to develop their young teams and keep hold of them.

“She’s loving life at the moment.”