LATEST MATCH REPORT: LADIES 1A XI

29/09/07

Wanderers 1As 4 v 2 Reigate

After last week’s surprising defeat to Surbiton (you’d have thought we’d have done better with just 10 players), Wanderers were keen to start their league campaign with a full team and a more positive result.

Early rain did nothing to dampen the spirits of a team delighted to meet the new Mrs Wareing [Jeanes] for the 1st time and welcome Rach back from her marathon efforts. Also back were Sus (who had recovered from her exhausting 5 minutes of warm up last week) and of course the welcome return of the magic coaching white board thingy. There was one notable absence though; the portaloos. How we will miss them!

Having checked out the oppo at Battersea Park, Lucy decided she’d turn up at the right pitch and joined us all at Kennington for a stern team talk from Cath. What was needed was strong start and lots of noise right from the warm up. 

That was exactly what she got. From the off Wanderers dominated the play with some slick passing round the back and excellent movement both on and off the ball. With Jo’s scurrying around up front and the midfield constantly stretching the Reigate defence it was surely only a matter of time before we scored. Sure enough, Jo soon netted our first goal of the new season.

A rather shocked Reigate re-started but it was Wanderers who seized the initiative once again and soon found themselves two goals to the good when Ali fired home a second.

Being stood at the back I tend not to pay a huge amount of attention to what is going on up the other end but I am guessing there was a bit of running around and another fine shot on goal as once again we were trotting back to the halfway line celebrating. Was it really 3-0??

At 3-0 up, we could obviously have gone on and finished off the opposition at our leisure but a) Reigate were having none of that and b) that would have been dull and relaxing.  And so for 10 minutes we lost all ability to pass the ball to anyone other than a red shirted player and tackling was replaced with some lovely tree felling manoeuvres. However, once they had got within a goal of us (thanks to a deflected short corner and a one-on-one in case anyone is interested) we calmed down and played with flair once more.

While the score remained at 3-2, Reigate looked dangerous on the break but once Helen had got our fourth, they had to concede we were the better team after all and fully deserved the 3 points (okay, maybe not quite true but hey, we did win our first game of the season and we enjoyed ourselves and the sun came out and all in all it was a good day at Kennington).

Scorers: Jo, Ali x2, Helen

------------------------------------------------------------------------------