U16 Girls - Liverrr plays with heart and brains

I refer you, dear reader, to an earlier blog entry which was all about our match against Wareham Rangers in the Dorset Cup qualifiers.

In that article I talk about how well the team did and what a nail biting match it was. So when you’ve read that perhaps you can answer the following question: What changes within the team between one match and the next that results in one match being one of the best ever and the following one so dreadful (11-0)?

I do hope you have some ideas dear reader as I am all out of them. If you do then please let me know as our journey to the middle of the table has been severely impacted and unless we can get things sorted out quickly it’ll be a damage limitation exercise to make sure we don’t finish last in the league…….again!

One thing to be salvaged was that Liverrr won the MVP for her best performance of the season demonstrating great detemination and some intelligent play. I hope that we’ll see more of her on such form in the future.

U16 Girls Cookie wins MVP for the first time

Our journey towards the mid point of the league table took a dramatic U turn as we went down 7-5 to the Queen Bees. What should have been an enjoyable but reasonably relaxed game became a game of ‘catch up’ as the Bees put on a display of gritty determination, combined with some good shooting skills.

Was it complacency that did us in, was it attitude, was it laziness, was it that the ‘will to win’ rollercoaster had left without the team on it? Maybe it was a mixture of all of these things with a few more besides but whatever it was it cost us dearly. I find it hard to believe that in one week can beat a team who is several places above us in the league and the following week crash and burn against one that is below us.

Now, instead of us knocking on the door of Parkstone Heights the Bees are knocking on ours. Instead of us improving our goal difference its got worse and instead of us chalking up another mark in the ‘wins’ column we have another in the ‘lost’.

There were a few positive points to pull out of an otherwise disastrous event and in particular congratulations are due to Hannah for scoring a hatrick, Kat for some wonderful footwork and scoring 2 more goals, Clarissa for the most amazing defensive run I have seen that prevented the Bees scoring into an otherwise open goal, Jaggi for some very intelligent input to the structure of the team and to Cookie who earned this week’s MVP for her tireless work-rate and dogged determination that nearly resulted in her first goal for the team.

If ever there was a demonstration of how to make a difficult job even harder I think this was it and now we need to regroup, reorganise and go into the next few games with the sort of passion and tenacity that has been displayed on a number of other occasions.

U16 Girls - A 'Katrick' and 2 from Em makes history

History was made this week when for the first time we beat Poole Town. At the start of the season we came close to drawing but this time we got the result we wanted.

With the previous week’s success to boost spirits the team enjoyed a good warm up and practice match. Then the game began and once again the team played some really excellent pass and move football, the result of which was some perfect through balls (Jaggi excelled herself here), most of the possession and somewhere near 90% of the time in the opposition’s half.

After just under 17 minutes Kat (who has now scored 5 goals in 2 matches) slotted home her first goal and needless to say everyone on the touchline was pretty excited about this. Things got even better nine minutes later when we were awarded a free kick 20+ yards out and Emily stepped up to take it. She hit the ball with terrific power and accuracy and left the opposition’s goalie no hope of saving it…we were 2-0 up!!

A few minutes later Poole got through and scored a goal and not too long after that the half time whistle blew. What a great first half, the quality of the football, the team effort, communication the whole lot was fantastic to watch.

At half time the team came up with some ideas on how to improve things further and it was with a great deal of confidence and commitment that they went back on.

Football has often been described as ‘a game of two halves’ and whoever coined that phrase was dead right as everything that went so well in the first half changed in the second. Poole Town seemed to set up camp in our half (despite being low on numbers) and made it really difficult for us to get out. They quickly drew level and then went a goal ahead, bad news or what?

However, it was great to hear the girls encouraging each other and not letting up. I think by this time the idea of getting a win was upmost in their minds. Again there were moments of brilliance and once again Kat was fed a good ball which she used to take on 2 defenders and finish with a hard low shot – we were back in the game at 3-3.

And so the nail biting game rushed on with Poole coming back strong and scoring again, it was 4 – 3 to them with the clock ticking. But Broadstone were having none of it. The defence worked hard and very cohesively, midfield battled on and the forwards were demanding the ball (great to hear). In the last 15 minutes of the game both Kat and Em got the breaks we needed and expertly slotted 2 more goals bringing the total to 5-4.

It was great to see the whole team working so well and in fact our final score line could well have been 7 or more such was the amount of shots was had on target. Hannah, Liv and several others (I can’t remember exactly who did what, sorry) all had good shots denied by Poole goalie but one goal difference is enough.

The final whistle blew to the delight of Shelley, Steve and me as well as all the spectators as we had got the points and made history!

I’d like to thank each member of the team (even though you may not be mentioned by name in this report) for putting in such a great effort, working so well together and playing some beautiful football.

MVP went to Em, not just for scoring goals but for her relentless work rate and dogged determination to make sure that we came away with a victory.

Next week, Queen Bees.