gU13 23-Feb-08: Oswald Rd 1-14 Stockport (HT 0-10) – 2^nd half friendly

Awaiting match report.

Kenesha

This game was held during the mid-term holidays and so we lost Sophie and Katie to visiting grandparents – then Becky caught something and was too sick to play. So we set off with only 7 players – too many to get the match officially postponed but not enough to really give Stockport a tough game. With both regular goalies not playing, we had to put Rudi in goal as she was the only player who had any goalie experience, and she stepped up to the plate and played incredibly well, saving lots of shots and also taking her goal kicks calmly and with intelligence – almost all of them went to one of our players and Stockport intercepted only a very few.

The first half was actually very good for Oswald Rd – we played very well both in defence and in our few attacks. All of Stockport’s goals had to be well worked as our defenders made few mistakes and the midfield supported them well with Ruqayyah especially rocketing all over the pitch. Kenesha was strangely subdued for once – maybe she had too many roles to cover in midfield and defence and gor confused a few times. Rudi made lots of good saves but Stockport had too many shots and spare players and the goals steadily mounted up.

For the second half, we agreed with Stockport (after Lauren Brennan, the pretty ref, checked the rules with League Officials) to complete the match on 0-10, and play the second half as a friendly with Stockport lending us two players – Amy and Kirstie. Both the Stockport players got into their new roles with great gusto, racing around the pitch and stopping loads of Stockport attacks. They even set up attacks for Oswald Rd and finally Ruqayyah and Roisin could push further forward to serve Kenesha and Zoe with more attacking passes. We had many more attacks but Zoe or Kenesha couldn’t manage to convert any of them. Rudi continued to have a great time in goal and after a clearance from Ruqayyah, Amy and Kirstie finally combined to send Amy past the Stockport defenders to score a great goal in the last minute of the game.

The very fair Stockport County report can be found at http://www.stockportcountyladies.com/NewsItem.aspx?id=101 – there’s a good 2^nd half action picture of Ruqayyah who was everywhere on the pitch.

Kamal

Goals: 2^nd half – Amy (Kirsty) 36’
Opposition’s Player of the Match: Rudi Blake
Managers’ Player of the Match: Rudi Blake
Team: (fwd) nowt (mid) Roisin, Zoë, Kenesha (def) Tara, Ruqayyah(c), Shaye, (gk) Rudi