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History of Glasgow City FC: how a women-led club won 14 in a row

Glasgow City FC history: how two friends founded a women-led club in 1998, won 14 titles in a row and stole the 2023 title in stoppage time at Ibrox.

By Brett Hanson · Underdog Podcasts · August 19, 2026

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At Ibrox on 21 May 2023, it was 0-0 and a taxi was waiting.

The club's own match report has a taxi holding the SWPL trophy on standby. Across town, Celtic were beating Hearts 2-0 and the trophy was just about in place at Celtic Park. Then Lauren Davidson scored. The clock read 91 minutes and 28 seconds. Newspapers call it the 92nd minute, and both are right. In the club's telling, the taxi had to make a three-point turn, and the sat nav switched from Celtic Park to Ibrox.

Glasgow City FC was founded in 1998 by friends Laura Montgomery and Carol Anne Stewart, who wanted women to run their own football. The club won promotion in its first season, took its first top-flight title in 2005, then won 14 league titles in a row up to 2021. It has 16 in all.

Chris Horwedel tells the story on Why We Love This Club, in the episode "Glasgow City FC — The Independent Club That Built Scotland's Women's Game". It's worth a listen. Here is the version with the dates lined up.

Who founded Glasgow City FC, and why?

Because nobody else was going to. Women's games in Scotland were recorded in the 19th century, and Horwedel says a Scotland v England match drew public attention in 1881. Then the doors closed. The club says the ban lasted more than fifty years, until the Scottish FA lifted it in 1974.

The episode has a nice example of how that played out. The first official Scotland women's international, in 1972, had to be staged at an athletics venue, because the association still barred women from its registered grounds. The Scottish FA didn't take control of the women's game until 1998.

That was the year Montgomery and Stewart started City. They were friends and footballers. Horwedel says they didn't want only a senior team. They wanted women running the football, the leadership and the long-term plan. Montgomery captained the side and later moved into an executive role. Stewart built the club off the pitch.

The point, as Horwedel puts it, is that the women were the club. They weren't a department asking a men's club for training time.

What is the history of Glasgow City FC after 1998?

The early years were cheap and busy. Players covered costs, arranged travel and trained around jobs or study. Cath Kimmitt was the first manager, and she played too. City won the First Division in their first season and have been in the top tier ever since.

The Scottish Cup came in 2004. The league title followed in 2004-05. Along the way City built a rivalry with Hibernian, which Horwedel says nobody inherited. It came from meeting again and again with trophies on the line.

The numbers got silly. City's record win is 29-0 against Kilmarnock in May 2010. By 2013 they had finished an unbeaten league season with three matches to spare. In 2016 they claimed a tenth straight title, a landmark unmatched in Scotland.

How did Glasgow City win 14 league titles in a row?

Here's the odd part. The streak depended on losing players, and not on keeping them.

The run covers 2007-08 to 2020-21, fourteen titles in succession. Horwedel points out that Scottish women's football had little broadcast or sponsor money, and richer leagues kept taking City's best. So the club found talent early and had the next player ready before the last one left.

Look at where they went. Erin Cuthbert, Denise O'Sullivan, Rachel Corsie and Katie McCabe all started in orange and black. Lisa Evans went to Turbine Potsdam, then Bayern Munich and Arsenal, Horwedel says. Every departure proved the pathway worked. Every one also left a hole.

“Glasgow City built it without the money, the ground, or the commercial network of the men's club. And that kind of explains the club.”
— Chris Horwedel, on Why We Love This Club

Leanne Ross filled most of them. She joined in 2007, stayed 14 years, made 365 appearances and scored a club-record 264 goals. She scored 54 in the 2010 season alone. Horwedel says she played midfield, defence and attack, and jokes that picking one position would only have slowed her down.

Not all of it was trophies. Cat Lindner, a former player with five league titles, died in 2019 aged 39. Horwedel says the team dedicated that year's league and cup double to her, and Claire Shine's added-time goal won the cup final.

Did Glasgow City reach the Champions League quarter-finals?

Twice. They got hammered first.

In 2011 Turbine Potsdam beat City 10-0 at home and 7-0 in Glasgow. The 0-10 is still the club's record defeat. Horwedel's take: a 17-goal loss leaves no room for creative interpretation. City learned from it anyway.

Three years later they beat Medyk Konin, then met FC Zurich. They lost the first leg 2-1 and trailed again in the return before Jo Love levelled the tie in the 81st minute and Suzanne Lappin headed the winner a few minutes from time. It finished 5-4 on aggregate, and City became the first Scottish team in a Champions League quarter-final. Paris Saint-Germain won 7-0 over the two legs.

Horwedel says the home leg moved to a bigger ground in Airdrie because Petershill couldn't hold the crowd. Wikipedia adds a wrinkle: City played at Airdrie's Excelsior Stadium from 2014 to 2017 because of problems with the Petershill pitch. So the move was less of a one-off than the episode suggests. The attendance was 1,785.

They made it again in 2019-20, beating Brøndby on penalties. Wolfsburg won 9-1 in a single match in San Sebastián. City were the last independent women's club to reach the quarter-finals.

Why did Glasgow City's run of titles end?

Rangers and Celtic got serious. Both moved their women's teams into full-time programmes backed by huge football operations. Rangers won the 2021-22 title in an unbeaten league campaign, while Celtic took both cups. The 14-year run was over.

I think Horwedel has this right. City didn't fade. They raised the standard until bigger clubs could afford to meet it, and then had to compete with the future they'd helped create.

Then came Ibrox. Ross, the club's all-time leading appearance-maker and goalscorer, took over as head coach in December 2022. Her eight-point lead dwindled to two in the last month. Goalkeeper Lee Gibson said afterwards that "Nobody thought we'd come first or second this year." City finished on 83 points, Celtic on 81 and Rangers on 78. Ross became the first female head coach to win the title.

Can Glasgow City stay independent?

That's the live question, and nobody has a signed answer.

The league has moved on. City finished three points behind Hibernian in 2024-25. In 2025-26, Hibs beat City with a last-minute goal on 10 May, and Hearts won a first title on the final day. The last time City won the league was 2023.

But the club still produces players. In March 2026, 19-year-old Lisa Forrest scored twice in 89 seconds to beat Rangers 2-1 in the league cup final. Horwedel notes she came up through the academy. It was City's first league cup since 2015, and a record-equalling seventh.

The ground is the sore point. Horwedel says the club's ultimate goal is a permanent home of its own, which would give an independent women's club an asset designed around its own future. The club's own history page calls the search for a permanent home long and frustrating. The episode puts Petershill's capacity near 1,000, though Wikipedia says up to 2,000. Either way, it's small. Partick Thistle Charitable Trust operates it.

The founders are still around. Montgomery is Chief Executive. The fan information page names Carol Anne Stewart as the person to email about accessibility at Petershill. She started the club in 1998. Now she answers the access queries.