U16 girls - Terraball, terraball, game and ref

We knew right from the moment we arrived it was going to be a ‘rubbish’ game just like the amount of ‘rubbish’ that was found all over the pitch including dog poo!.

Anyway, we were getting organised and ready to ‘start dead on time’ (as requested by the ref) and soon we began to get the ball moving. Unfortunately nothing seemed to go right and added to that we were low on numbers - sometimes down to as low as 8 on the pitch! The Terras were playing well but our competitive spirit meant we were not going down without a fight.

Soon the first goal against us was scored but it was under very strange circumstances as the ref decided to give the Terras a free kick because he thought Lydi has picked the ball up whilst it was still outside her box (which she wasn’t). Disappointingly and in complete contravention of the rules the ref then proceeded to coach the Terras on how best to take the kick, where to stand etc etc. At this point we realised they had 12 players on the pitch including the ref!

Half time appeared and it was 2-0 to the Weymouth side , the team talk was short and everyone was thinking of ways to get us scoring, our sprits were still high and was lifted by a text read by Emily’s from Tony who sadly couldn’t be at the game. We came back onto the pitch feeling very positive and looking to score some goals.

When it got to 3-0 nothing was looking good. Needless to say no one on our team liked the score and to make matters worse the Ref didn’t’ control the behaviour of the Terras even when Rachael seemed to become the ball and got pushed, shoved and kicked all over the place.

Meanwhile Rhea was limping around the pitch with a nasty knock she took to her leg from a Weymouth girl (which once again was not dealt with by the ref).

Weymouth scored their 4th and this inspired Kat to make one of her ‘ Krazy Kat runs’ beating almost the whole of the left hand side of Weymouth’s defence but couldn‘t quite get the finish we wanted. During this time we had to swap the referees due to the first one limping off the pitch for some reason (it’s a pity this didn’t happen earlier!)

But by now we’d had enough and people were beginning to get upset, tired due to the lack of players and just angry at Weymouth for the foul play.

Towards the final minutes Hannah was trying hard to win the ball but a player went down and another brought her elbow to Hannah’s chest! The parents complained to the ref who, instead of dealing with the incident, decided to give a warning to a couple of the parents (Cookies and Daisy’s mums) but at least they were getting into the game!
The whistle blew and it was 4-0 defeat. MVP goes to Kat for her amazing runs and good teamwork. Well done to everyone who played and hopefully we can work on the lessons learned from this match.
By Hannah