Hockey: Scotland goalkeeper Amy Gibson hangs up gloves after 15-year career

Amy Gibson has brought the curtain down on her 15-year Scotland career

As a young girl, Amy Gibson dreamed of emulating her football hero Jim Leighton - but after a 15-year career between the sticks for Scotland's women's hockey team she is finally calling time on her international career.

The Scotland goalkeeper - one of the most capped players in the national side with 134 caps - made her international debut aged just 19.

Now 35, and after two Great Britain caps and three Commonwealth Games appearances for the national side, she has announced it's time to move on.

"I've had a great career," Gibson told BBC Scotland.

"I've had a few injuries for quite a long time and it is so intense being an international athlete, I just don't think I have the motivation for all the training.

"I love the tournaments, I love playing all the games, but it is a lot of extra work you have to do behind the scenes that people don't see. It was a good time to stop."

Gibson also won German indoor and outdoor championship titles with Hamburg-based Der Club an der Alster.

She said: "I feel like it [my hockey career] was successful, maybe not so much on the medal front for Scotland, just what I have been able to achieve in my life, a wee girl from Dumbarton.

"To go to all these different places and go to all these Commonwealth Games, I would say it was a success."

Gibson "fell in love" with the sport after trying it at school - where she had previously played in goal, wearing a Leighton top - with football's loss being very much Scottish hockey's gain.

"I think it was probably my destiny to be a hockey goalie rather than a football goalie when I moved up the age groups and the goals got bigger and I just couldn't reach the post any more," she said.

Gibson will still be seen at major events, albeit in a different role, and in a different sport - as a content creator for World Curling.

"It is great to still be part of a sporting federation and still get to travel about - that is one thing I thought I was going to miss when I stop playing," she added.

"It is nice to be on the other side of sporting events and knowing how the athletes are feeling in those tense situations."