16/09/18 Headington Vs Taplow Ladies

Headington Ladies v Taplow Ladies, Thames Valley Counties Women’s Football League, Division 1, OX4, Sunday 16th September 2018, Kick Off 2pm

Team: Lou (gk), Sarah, Nicöla, Freya, Madhana, Kim, CD, Holly, Andreea, Gemma (c), Naomi, Jess, Chloe and Jemma

Score: 4 – 2 (CD, Holly 2 and Andreea)

Manager: Marc

Supporters club: Alek, Alek’s mum, Anna D, Malin, Chloe’s Dad and Craig.

Special thanks to Alek for running the line for us!!

We turned up to OX4 on another warm day, unfortunately we didn’t have the kit so after a delay Sharon came to our rescue by delivering the purple kit, thanks Sharon!!!!! We quickly warmed up ready for the kick off, the game was delayed for 10 minutes as Taplow only had 9 and their 10th had arrived so we waited for her to get ready......we're very sporting!! We had 7 changes from the team that played last week and a change in formation, this was going to be interesting!!

Taplow kicked off and came at us with everything they had, we hadn’t settled into our new system and were not at the races. Taplow had some familiar faces with a number of ex-Wycombe Wanderers players, one of which was their 63 goal top scorer who caused us problems early on. We settled after about 10 minutes and got to grips with the game. Despite having a player advantage we were not making the best use of the ball. We drew first blood after about 20 minutes when a ball was cleared from our defence up to Gemma who drew a player out of position leaving CD with space to bring the ball under control and plant it past their excellent keeper. We then made a few changes, Gemma wasn’t feeling well so came off, we re-shuffled the defence and pushed Nic up top. We continued to breach their defence time and again, Naomi and Andreea were both clean through but found their keeper in inspired form. We had a lucky escape when Taplow’s striker was clean through when Chloe popped up out of no-where to deny a certain goal, I bet her dad enjoyed this!!! The game was quite open and we were finding a lot of space. Naomi was unlucky to see a goal bound effort cleared off the line and Andreea unlucky to not get her name on the scoresheet. We survived a near disaster when Taplow’s striker knocked the ball past Lou but the goal was ruled out for offside. Despite playing a new formation we were playing some nice football. The defence was resolute and kept their dangerous striker on a leash, Kim, playing in an unfamiliar defensive role was enjoying a great game in front of the back four, Holly was full of running add on top the running of Andreea and Naomi on the wings we were looking good!! The half ended without any further incident and so we went into the break a goal to the good.

We kicked off the second half and immediately pressed for further goals. We were playing some great balls through to set Andreea and Naomi off on runs, unfortunately their keeper was not in the mood to concede, she had a particular annoying habit of pulling off great saves from Andreea!! We extended our lead after about 55 minutes when a shot was well saved by their keeper, the ball was spilled which Naomi challenged for, the ball spun loose to Holly who tucked away the ball to put us into a commanding lead. We had the chances to extend our lead but couldn’t beat their keeper. Unfortunately we fell asleep at the back and allowed a Taplow player to wriggle free and plant a shot over Lou to give them hope. This buoyed our opponents but we stuck at it and scored a third goal from a corner, Jess's shot was cleared at least a foot behind the line, unfortunately it wasn't given despite the celebrations!! The game carried on and from our throw we made a bit of a mess of things and saw the ball go flying down our left wing, we should’ve stopped the cross but the cross came flying into our area and an unfortunate own goal (I think) ensued. Disappointed that we hadn’t turned our dominance into more goals we set about our task and kept probing their defence looking for a way through. Andreea again was unlucky to see a shot saved by their keeper. We finally got the break through that we were craving after around 70 minutes, as we attacked down the right the ball was played into Holly who somehow managed to dribble past two defenders and coolly slot past their keeper despite having two cramped legs!!! I don’t know how Holly was still mobile the amount of running she was doing!!! We made a few changes bringing Jemma on who had arrived late and this gave us some fresh legs. We kept probing their tired defence, looking to put the game to bed. We made a few more changes bringing Gemma back on for the last ten minutes and letting Andreea loose after a short break. We were looking the stronger of the two teams going into the final stretch and after about 85 minutes Andreea finally got the goal she deserved!!!! 4-2 and we had secured our first win of the season, great effort and really nice to get off the mark with a win, last year we had to wait until January to get our first league win!! This was also our first win at OX4 in four attempts.Sadly we say farewell to Chloe who is leaving us to travel abroad so it was nice to send her on her way with a win!!!

Next week we’re back in action away at Tilehurst.