Kat Lindner, academic and footballer for Glasgow City
Born: September 3, 1979;
Died: February 2, 2019
DR KATHARINA “Kat” Lindner, who has died aged 39, was a German-born footballer who had a successful career in Scotland. Several German footballers – Gerry Neef, Jorg Albertz, Stefan Klos at Rangers and Andreas Thom for Celtic – have played in Scotland, but none has made the lasting impact of Kat Lindner.
The Munich-born footballer was raised in the small Bavarian town of Kleinostheim, some 40 kilometres from Frankfurt. Aged 16, she joined 1FC Frankfurt, helping them to a women's league and cup double. She also played for the German Under-16 and Under-18 teams, achievements which won her a soccer scholarship to Hartford University in Connecticut.
She was an outstanding student at Hartford, helping the Hawks to All East Conference honours. She was also selected as NSCAA First Team All-American in 2000. This means she was considered the best player in her position in the entire USA collegiate system.
However, she was more than simply a student athlete. Lindner shone academically, being named as the outstanding student athlete in her senior year, and graduating with a degree in media science and psychology.
In 2014 she was inducted into Hartford's Athletics Hall of Fame.
After graduating, she played for West Mass Pioneers, in the second division of the USA's women's professional league. During this time she also studied for a masters degree, prior to coming to Scotland, to study for a PhD in film studies at Glasgow University.
She joined the recently-formed Glasgow City Ladies team, where she found love with one of the team's co-founders Laura Montgomery, and as the team - under coach Eddie Wolecki-Black - began to dominate women's football in Scotland, Lindner became a key player.
She scored 128 goals in 173 appearances for City, along the way setting a record for the number of appearances in European competitions for a Scottish club – as city became regulars in the women's Champions League. She was also twice named as the club's Player of the Year, prior to her retirement, following the 2011 Scottish Women's Cup Final. After hanging up her boots, she joined City's coaching staff.
On obtaining her PhD, Dr Lindner took up a lecturing post in the department of media and culture at Stirling University, becoming a leading and much-published writer on feminism and women's issues, specialising in gender, sports, queer theory and how women’s images are presented in the media.
Her research interests included feminist film and cultural criticism, questions of identity, subjectivity and embodiment, film phenomenology, as well as media and sport. Dr Lindner published work on athleticism and cinema, dance in film, sport and (post) feminism, as well as on bodily performance and embodiment and/in film.
Scotland women's cap centurion Leanne Ross named Dr Lindner as one of her inspirations, while former City coach Wolecki-Black, now head coach with Celtic women, praised her for the example she set both in games and in training.
Kat Lindner is survived by Laura Montgomery, her partner of 16 years, and now club manager for Glasgow City. Dr Lindner will be long admired for her part in making City Scotland's leading women's football team. The German men who played for both halves of the Old Firm might have had more media exposure and be better known, but Kat Lindner's legacy may prove to be longer lasting.
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