Shelley Kerr 'delighted' to bring experience to Hearts in groundbreaking role

Former Scotland women’s national team head coach Shelley Kerr has said she is delighted to be taking on a key role at Hearts as the club’s new technical development manager.

Kerr has been appointed to the newly-created post to oversee the process of developing players from the academy through to the first team set-up.

The Tynecastle club say she will be tasked with “implementing a technical and tactical framework to help players and coaches aspire to fulfil their potential” at Hearts.

Kerr, who has experience of men’s football from her time in charge of Stirling University, will also assist B Team head coach Angus Beith.

The 55-year-old thanked Hearts’ new sporting director Graeme Jones for appointing her to the position and said she was looking forward to getting started.

“Firstly, I would like to thank Graeme, the football department and the board at Heart of Midlothian for the opportunity to work in such an important role at the club,” Kerr said.

“I am fortunate to have undertaken a variety of leadership roles across men’s and women’s football since I retired as a player and I am excited to bring the accumulation of that knowledge and experience to Heart of Midlothian.”

Since her time as Scotland head coach, where she took the team to the Women’s World Cup, Kerr has worked as a pundit and as head of women’s development teams at the English FA, and Jones said the latter was one of the achievements that made her the right candidate.

“Shelley’s extensive experience and skill set is ideally suited to this new role at the club and I look forward to working with her to harness the development pathway leading to the first team,” he said.

“She will support Angus from a coaching perspective with the B Team but her remit will be far more wide-ranging, from 18s through to B Team.

“She will have an overview of the talent pipeline – of coaches as well as players – but fundamentally the job of technical development manager is to make the route towards the first team clearer for those on the journey.

“As well as her coaching experience and UEFA Pro Licence, what made Shelley stand out was the work undertaken with the English FA in taking the principle of a high-performance environment and implementing key physical, tactical and technical strategies and objectives.”