On Sunday our reserves travelled up to Alton Ladies FC for their 3rd league game of the season. We were hoping to get back to winning ways after last week’s narrow loss.

The game started very cagily with both teams giving up possession as quickly as they got it in the early stages. Despite the scrappy nature of the opening exchanges chances did come. On ten minutes Gard made a well measured pass, which got Lander in behind the home defence. Their centre back recovered to bundle her over in the box, but the referee saw nothing wrong and waved play on.

A couple of minutes later a foul for the home team in the corner resulted in a free kick, which was delivered well into our box. A small scramble in our goal mouth resulted with Sims clearing excellently from just in front of the goal line.

The next half chance fell our way on 17 minutes. Another good delivery, this time from Roe down our right, eluded their ‘keeper but was well cleared by a defender at the far post, just in front of the onrushing Bentley. Our midfield started to settle after this, but the game was fairly evenly poised.

On 26 minutes a defensive free kick from the home team was picked off in midfield, with Roe playing Lander in behind their back line again. This time there was no catching her and she slotted in cooley 1 on 1 to break the deadlock. 0-1 BSFC.

The home team were not cowed and got at our back line, with Norman called into action with an excellent last ditch tackle just before the half hour mark. Another chance a couple of minutes later was dealt with equally well by Norman with Sims finishing the job to snuff out the danger.

Both teams had good sights of goal before the break, ours falling to Parsons and theirs falling to their very lively no. 8. Both chances ended up safely in the goal keepers hands and these were the last of the half.

HT 0-1

The second half started a lot more frenetically than the first and within two minutes an attack from the home team broke down with a lot of their players committed forward. This gave us a chance to counter and we broke quickly with Parsons feeding Thompson who, in turn, played White in. The last defender managed to make back the ground on White forcing her wide, but White managed to slip round her to finish well for two nil. 0-2

White, again, got in behind and forced a corner, which came to nothing, and was denied another run at goal by a very tight offside decision. Roe had a couple of sights of goal, firing over after great work from Taylor to square the ball to her in the box and slicing just wide after cutting into the box well from a throw in by the left corner flag.

Another breakthrough came on 73 minutes when Parsons’ mazey run down the left saw her beat a defender, before cutting inside another to be taken down inside the box. The resulting penalty was calmly dispatched into the bottom right corner by Taylor for three nil. 0-3.

We now had a good hold of the game with our midfield of Taylor, Roe, Gard and De Angelis starting to dictate the pace and the home team seeming to begin to tire a bit. An exchange of good chances just after 75 minutes saw a corner for us fall invitingly to Weeks, who couldn’t keep her effort down, before Brett made a good save at their near post after the Alton winger had got in down our left.

With the clock running down Roe produced another lovely through ball to Lander who beat their ‘keeper to it to poke home her second of the game 0-4.

Roe was involved again as she put some polish on the result, cutting in from the right hand side of the box to finish at the near post as the game ticked into stoppage time 0-5.

A good performance across the team in a, sometimes, feisty encounter saw us take the win and three points. Particular praise must go to De Angelis for an outstanding first half performance in the middle of the park. Lander for her runs in behind and goals, Roe and Talyor for excellently controlling the pace in midfield and creating chances, Parsons for excellent hold-up play and Norman with a very assured performance at centre back.

The reserves have a week off this Sunday, and will head to the Isle of Wight to support the first team in the FA CUP, and they will return to league action on the 10th of October at home to Rushmoor Community Women.

Player’s Player went to Kiera De Angelis.

Manager’s Player went to Lindsey Roe

Rory went to manager Vincent Marmion