COWHC Ladies 1s vs Wanderers Ladies 4s - 11th March 2017

So with the early morning start, we had arranged to all meet on the train from our various home stations, Purley, Purley Oaks, South Croydon and East Croydon. It was all planned and on time until…
Someone decided they wanted to ruin everyone’s Saturday morning and jump in front of a train, cancelling trains from Purley Oaks and South Croydon and delaying anything else. The message to the group was just get to the game as soon as you can any way you can! We had girls being stuck outside East Croydon for 20mins, girls on trains to Balham, London Bridge and one getting 3 buses! Commitment from the ladies.

6 of us were there, ready and shirt colour decided. We told Wanderers the rest were on their way and they were happy for us to delay pushback slightly to give us all time to perfect our skills and drills in the warm up. I think they may regret this. Finally everyone was there and kitted up before the start of the game it was a miracle! I even had one more player than I had planned! I couldn’t work out who I hadn’t counted but it meant we had 3 subs on this glorious sunny day!

We wanted to prove to Wanderers Ladies we were a different team from the first half of the season and we had improved significantly with our new formation and position changes.

Wanderers started hard and I think we were still warming up, they came at us hard and we soon realised we would have to up our game and our passing to even this up. We defended well with Lena, Santy and Dicko not letting much through – unfortunately one slipped through the net 1-0.

This kicked us up the bum and the talking got louder and our confidence grew. The midfield (Emma, Chloe, Lbell, Nicky) ran their socks off, and Emer was a great pivot helping the ball switch around the back. The passing improved and we started to prove to Wanderers we were a team that had changed and we wanted this as much as them.

We had our counter attacks and we thought this was it, unfortunately Rachel’s shot narrowly missed the back post.

Half Time 1-0; team talk was to carry on as we finished the half, go into these tackles hard, win those 50/50 and always play to the whistle as you never know which way that arm is pointing!

Second half we defended well, all the way from the front with Rachel, Hannah, Sally and Alex putting great pressures on their defence. We won our second short of the game, I stepped up to push it out as I had done many a time this season. But this one was not meant to be and I took my eye off it (I blame the wine on Friday), I topped it. Wanderers defence pounced on this before our forwards could realise I couldn’t touch it again!

Completely against the run of play they countered, onto a foot and it’s a short. But was it a short or a flick? Was the foot on the line stopping it going in? We were adamant it wasn’t a goal scoring opportunity and the umpire stuck to her guns and gave a short – we defended it well as we always do and got rid of it!

Unfortunately they kept the pressure on and in went the second goal 2-0. It was gutting, we all knew this wasn’t deserved. The Mighty COWs did not let their heads drop. We pushed hard and gave everything we had. Our forwards were not going to give up, and this time Rachel made sure she found the back of that net 2-1! - We knew we had it in us that we could get this back – we gave it our all, we didn’t let anything past. We were solid!

Another shot and a big shout from Alex ‘get it in the goal’ Sally did exactly that and poached it at the back post! 2-2!

5 minutes to go and we had to hold on hard for the 1 point! Everyone found every ounce of energy we had and defended with our lives.

The moment that final whistle went we couldn’t believe it, we had done the unthinkable coming back from 2-0 down to draw against 2nd in the league!

Our passion and fight were amazing and I couldn’t have been more proud of my ladies from not giving up, passing to everyone’s sticks, passing it around the back and hassling Wanderers until that ball went into the back of the net!

We were brilliant until the final whistle and going to take this into Sunday vs Surbiton who were now the new 2ndin the league!

With 3 games left we are going to give it all together as a team!

ALL for ONE and ONE for ALL

Thanks to Nicky Rao for umpiring

MOM - for miscounting of players and topping the ball at the short corner - Nicky Wilson

POM - Chloe and Emma 0.5, Lena and Dicko 1, Emer and Santy 1.5, Rachel and Alex 2, Sally 4.