Date: 28/10/2007
Game: Westside v BAWFC
Author: Preeti
Player of the match: Nicole and Simone
Westside v BAWFC (1-4)
Team: Go Go Gadget Grrrr, The Wonderer, LA Bird, Captain, Excellent, The General, Frank, Chardonnay (Oliver), Drogba, Sheri (Bulldog), Livstar
Manager/Coach: Gerry…No you don’t make up names for the coach.
Conditions for the game at Westside weren’t up to our liking. It was raining that annoying amount of rain and the pitch was…well I think they had just imported the middle of the pitch from another ground. And we were waiting for one of our star strikers to arrive. With a quick warm-up and one change to the scheduled starting line-up we were eager to get going.
The game, due to the conditions and what seemed like nerves, wasn’t up to last week’s standard. We struggled to really get to grips with the game with a strong Westside team dominating much of the game. BUT….we scored first!!! Lou took a corner and we were gifted our first goal by a fumble from the Westside keeper which resulted in the ball crossing the goal line. I’ve been told the ball would have gone in even if the keeper hadn’t touched it; Lou, shooting from corners is VERY selfish!
Westside soon had a chance to level the game; their number 10, who was giving us a bit of trouble at the back, ran right through our centre halves to get one on one with Svitlana. Svit stayed on her feet well and pulled off a very important save.
Ailsa, who was struggling with injury, was soon replaced by Olive who made an instant impact on the game. Her cross and Livvy’s dummy led to Char scoring number 2 for BA by coming into the 18 yard box from the right wing. The defence, with Simone playing one of her best games of the season, limited Westside’s impressive striker’s chances of scoring for the rest of the half and BA maybe should have got at least one more goal before the break with Livvy going the closest to add to BA’s tally.
Oh another incident from the first half was one of the Westside players trying to square up to Lou; guess she was still upset about Lou’s cross/shot which led to goal number 1. A bit of holding back from Nav and foul language by the Westside player led to Gerry claiming “it was like watching a men’s game!” and also led to the coach finally buying football boots. Think now Gerry means business.
Half-time came with some much needed honest words from Gerry…and bananas!
Second half came and we as a team actually played one of our best second half performances this season. With Mandy concentrating on her defensive duties it limited Westside’s chances of breaking the back four down, which was made all the more difficult for Westside with Nicole being on top form.
Much of the second half was played in our half BUT we got the first goal of the second half. Char cut it back for Lou to shoot from just outside the box to make it 3-0 to BA. This really settled us down and we maybe should have had a couple more with Nav and Livvy going close. One of these chances led to the Westside keeper getting into a huff with her own defenders and it seemed that she was either going to walk off the pitch or punch her own player (yes these two choices are quite different but it’s difficult to see from way back!)
We scored goal number 4 with Livvy catching the Westside defensive out and lobbing the keeper from 25 yards. Livvy was more relieved then excited about scoring her first BA goal of the season, her words after scoring were: “I thought I’d forgotten how to score”.
Katie replaced Marie in centre mid and soon got to grips with the game, asking for EVERY ball to be passed to her. Westside did get a consolation goal about 5 or 10 minutes from time from a corner. Their Manager’s instructions were to “stop celebrating and pick the ball out of the back of the net!!! They had 3 more goals to score!!!”…in 5 minutes. At least that put a smile on mine and Nic’s face.
