ANOTHER new name joined the roster at Celtic Women when Jodie Bartle made the trip across the border from down south to join fellow new Ghirl, Lisa Robertson, who made the same journey up north from Durham, and Stateside signings, Sarah Teegarden and Summer Green.

The 27-year-old has steadily made her way up the rankings in English football although she only took the game up seriously at the age of 17-years-old. However, when Fran Alonso’s Lewes side came up against her last season, her performance was imprinted in the new Celtic’s coach’s mind and, as soon as he joined the Hoops, he began moves to make Bartle his first signing.

Peterborough born and bred, the centre-half is now turning professional for the first time under the new Celtic vision and she now aims to add silverware to her CV as another piece of the Celtic Women’s jigsaw that is becoming clearer with each passing week.

As a fan, Bartle may have walked up London Road in her hometown to watch the Posh now and again, but the defender is now travelling along a different London Road in the Dear Green Place to an altogether different experience at Paradise.

This week’s Celtic View caught up with the new signing as she settled into the welcoming surroundings of her new club.

What type of player are you?

I would say that I like to think I'm quite an aggressive player, being a centre-back. I try to have a bit of a presence on the field as well in sort of a no-nonsense kind of thing. I like to be alert to any sort of danger. I do a lot of talking and shouting – in fact, I don’t shut up. As far as getting forward goes, I used to play full-back quite a bit at a couple of my older clubs, and I loved being able to bomb forward and having that freedom to get up the park. However, recently I've very rarely played in a full-back position and I'm not really too bothered about getting forward. The only times I do get forward are at corners, and even then I sometimes get a nosebleed – it’s a bit too far up for me now.

Tell us about your previous clubs…

I started out at Yaxley, that was my first ever club. It was my local side and I was there for a season when I was 17. Then I moved on to Peterborough Northern Star and I was there for five or six seasons and I was captain there for most of that time. That was at tier five and then I moved on to Loughborough Foxes, I started there in mid-season and I was there for a few seasons. The season after I joined, we were promoted to tier three and I played there for another season. I then moved up another tier when I joined Coventry United and I had been there from September up until now.

How did the move to Celtic come about?

I think it was because I caught Fran’s eye when Coventry United played against his Lewes at the start of the season. I’m assuming he was just quite happy with how I played, so, with his move here, he's decided to bring me along with him. We lost 2-1 in that game, but I still caught his eye. That was at a time when we were conceding goals in the last eight or so minutes for quite a few games. We were just sort of gelling at that point

How quickly did you settle in at each of your other clubs?

At Loughborough, I settled in incredibly quickly, they were an absolutely top-notch bunch of girls. At Coventry I just went in there and got stuff done quietly and settled in fairly quickly. It was just a lot different because the pressures were higher, compared to Loughborough with it being quite a bit of a step-up really.

For the full interview with Jodie Bartle, see this week’s Celtic View, out now.

To download a digital version of the magazine, click on the banner below.

Jodie Bartle’s first interview with the Celtic View