23/09/18 Tilehurst Panthers v Headington Ladies

Tilehurst Panthers v Headington Ladies, Thames Valley Counties Women’s Football League Division 1, Sunday 23rd September 2018, Kick off 2pm,

Team: Lou (gk), Sarah, Nicöla, Freya, Madhana, Emma, Kim, CD, Vic, Carrie (c), Andreea, Anna D, Kat, Snowy and Jess.

Score: 5 – 2 (Carrie and Emma)

Manager: Marc

Supporters club: Two members of Andreea’s family, special thanks to her friend for running the line, sorry didn’t catch the name!

We travelled to the other side of Reading to take on unbeaten Tilehurst. Unfortunately the ref hadn’t turned up, however, Tilehurst had a referee all kitted up with a whistle and cards all ready to go.

We lost the toss and kicked off playing down the slope. We didn’t start particularly well with Tilehurst throwing everything at us. We survived for about 15 minutes before we were finally breached, after clearing the ball it came pinging straight back at our defence and a Tilehurst player burst through to slot past Lou at the near post. We slowly started to get ourselves back into the game and were doing a superb job at keeping the score down. We should’ve been awarded a free kick on the edge of their area when Vic was rugby tackled to the ground by three Tilehurst players but nothing wasn’t awarded. We survived a couple of scares from free-kicks awarded on the edge of our area which came to nothing.

We started the second half with purpose and hit Tilehurst hard and it didn’t take long to get ourselves back into the match, a clearance from the defence found Carrie who played a great 1-2 and slammed the ball home to put back on level terms, fantastic finish! We dug in but conceded several corners which were questionable. After we successfully cleared a corner Lou was penalised for being infringed by their striker and a penalty was awarded. Going 2-1 down fired us up, the injustice fired us up. We hit back several minutes later to restore parity with a great finish from Emma!! 2-2 was the least that we deserved. Disaster then struck as Lou chased after a ball outside her area and was beaten for pace, the ball was curled in but Freya cleared off the line only for an on-rushing Tilehurst player to score in an open goal. We tried to get back into the match and had a great opportunity to score when a shot from Carrie was saved by their keeper leaving an open goal, unfortunately Vic hit the bar and the chance was gone. We then conceded a few more corners and from one the ball was scrambled home from 3 yards dead centre of our goal, shocking that we didn’t clear this. At 4-2 we tried to get ourselves back into it the match. As the game wore on we became fatigued and didn’t do our jobs. A header was missed which saw a Tilehurst player control the ball, we didn’t react quickly enough and another soft goal was conceded. We had a few opportunities to get a third but it just wasn’t happening.

Onwards to next week and a trip to Wantage!!