Borders athlete Kirsty Rankine inspired by Football World Cup prior to heading for hills again

Her home region is already part of Scotland’s world cup history, thanks to Galashiels’ John Collins having been one of their last two players to score a goal in the global tournament’s finals prior to John McGinn’s deflected effort earning them a 1-0 victory against Haiti in Massachusetts at the weekend.

Collins himself is hoping that his penalty against Claudio Taffarel in the Scots’ opening game of 1998’s finals does not remain the most recent one scored against Brazil after the current team’s forthcoming pool game versus the South Americans next Wednesday, June 24, little suspecting back then that 1998’s three group-stage matches in France would be his country’s last participation in a finals for 28 years.

Equally little did Fraser Rankine imagine that he would have to wait such a time for his bagpipes to again soundtrack football’s biggest tournament.

The Highlander-turned-Borderer won acclaim among fans in France in 1998 for his musical talent and he’s now back with his pipes in Boston, but this time with his family in tow, daughter Kirsty included.

“We have been really looking forward to it and it’s great to see Scotland back in the world cup finals,” said the teenager prior to leaving the family home in St Boswells to cheer on manager Steve Clarke’s squad.

“My dad has been a big Scotland football supporter all his life and we’ve grown up supporting the team, so it will be amazing to go to the world cup finals for the first time.

“I love my sport and enjoy cross-country and hill-running, and your ambition is always to represent your country and take part in the biggest events that you can. For me, that would be the Commonwealth Games and Olympic Games, and I don’t know if I’ll ever be good enough to do that, but seeing Scotland in a world cup finals inspires me – you just never know.”

The first athletics event Kirsty can remember taking part in was the St Boswells Village Race for under-eights, finishing first at the age of five.

She then had to wait until she was eight to compete in the Borders Cross-Country Series, with elder brother Cameron showing her the way.

She’d joined the Tweed Leader Jed Track club at seven and ran for both them and Gala Harriers before focusing on the latter.

Kirsty went on to earn east district selection for the Scottish inter-district cross-country championships six years running, from under-13 level to under-17, collecting an under-13 team bronze at the Scottish cross-country championships, running for Scottish schools at a Schools International Athletic Board event in Liverpool and for Scotland at the GB and Ireland junior hill international in 2023 and 2024.

Sporting careers rarely proceed without disappointments along the way, though, and Kirsty was hit by an abrupt full stop to her progress in 2024.

“It’s not been all plain sailing,” she recounted.

“I suffered a torn calf muscle at a hill training day in Stirling two years ago. My foot hit a stone in the ground and I had a nasty fall and had to be helped off the hill and carried about for the rest of the day.

“That wasn’t great, but the support of my coach, Neil Renton, and Scottish Borders Council’s athlete support programme was huge for me then.

“I was able to get support from the Border Physio Clinic, and physio Danny Pulman, who did a lot to get me back running again.

“I have also had strength and conditioning training and access to sports psychology, and having that specialist support programme in the Borders inspires me to go on and perform too.

“I also had exams coming up at school at the time I was injured, which took my mind off the fact that I couldn’t compete, and my coach and my family were quite firm on school coming first and how I had to make sure I kept my studies up to date, so that gave me the chance to work hard on my education.”

An unexpected silver lining to the cloud that injury cast over her athletics prospects was that it prompted Kirsty to channel her frustration and ambition in another direction and she would go on to claim straight As in six national-five exams, followed by good higher results last year, setting her up to go to university and study accountancy after the summer holidays.

With that part of her future mapped out, her confidence was boosted upon returning to athletics and she’s certainly made a creditable comeback.

She’s competed in the British Inter-Counties CrossCountry Championships at under-17 level in each of the past two years and became the first Gala Harrier ever to medal at that event with a team bronze in 2025.

She won a second national youth road-races team gold in 2025, having previously done so in 2023, and was selected by Scotland for the World Youth Mountain Running Cup in Slovakia last year, finishing 23rd out of 56 runners and as second in her team and fifth GB runner across the line.

The former Earlston High School pupil has been competing across the country for almost a decade and despite the inevitable ups and downs that come with hill-running, both literally and figuratively, her enthusiasm has never waned.

She rates her cross-country season this year as mixed, the highs being a tenth place in the Scottish inter-district championship in January, sixth overall at the national cross-country championship and running for Scotland at the inter-counties in Nottingham, albeit with a foot niggle.

A break in the US might well turn out to be her next source of inspiration prior to returning for the rest of the hill-race season and, hopefully, a place for Scotland at the next junior home internationals.

“I’m missing some hill-races while we’re away but it is brilliant to be going to the world cup,” she said.

“A big goal for me would be to run for Team GB on mountains and hills. I prefer that to the track because they’re more interesting to run.

“You don’t have to have that much speed, but on the hills, you can leave people in your wake and I think that suits me – a bit like Scotland, maybe. We can surprise people.”