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10th Game: Home versus Liverpool John Moore’s 1st’s

Date: 11th February 2007

Kick Off: 2.00pm

Tensions were huge, and expectations high as Lancaster Women’s football team faced the league winners in a match that, if won, guaranteed them a place in the national knockout competition and also would award them second place in the league. Lancaster had to go into this with their heads in the right place and their concentration high.

Lancaster began the game extremely well and within the first five minutes a brilliant movement forward and a magical shot by Sue Wynes gave Lancaster an early lead. The next ten minutes saw several attempts at goal by Lancaster, including one brilliant move which broke from the half way line. A great through ball from Wynes to Catherine McCartan meant McCartan broke free from the Liverpool defenders; she unselfishly passed the ball to Emily Hyslop who shot. Hyslop’s shot hit the keeper but McCartan was there to head in the shot, it narrowly missed and hit the crossed bar instead. After this Lancaster were determined to hit the back of the net on the next push forward and did this with style. In the sixth minute a brilliant slicing ball by McCartan enable Wynes to add to her goal tally with another exquisite goal.

From this point onwards, basically the rest of the match, LUWFC were a constant threat on goal and should have had many more in the first half. Wynes, Hyslop, McCartan all had several chances but the Liverpool Keeper managed to keep a lot of the shots out with a flailing leg or arm. However, LUWFC were hit by two injuries in the first half, and both situations were not dealt with calmly by the referee, who quite frankly was not ready to take on a university game. Emma Kevin came off with a sprained ankle replacing her was Andrea ???. Next off was Sue Wynes who unfortunately pulled her quadriceps and couldn’t continue to play, Wynes was replaced by Rachel Mckinley. The rest of the first half was full of tension and irritation as one of the Liverpool players continued to be quite frankly rude and obnoxious, whilst also recklessly tackling the Lancaster players and diving an awful lot.

The half time whistle blew and Lancaster came off the pitch angered and irritated, whether it was towards themselves or others remains a debate. A quick team talk from the captain brought the team back together, McCartan urged that the team had not yet won this match and things could easily change.

The second half brought several more attempts at goal by Lancaster: McCartan, Mckinley, Hyslop all should have had their names on the score sheet in the second half. Lancaster were then unfairly awarded two yellow cards almost back to back, which may I point out is extremely unusual in the women’s league and so therefore hopefully will be investigated. However, after another brief moment of madness, Lancaster scored in the 22nd minute. A brilliant corner by Kathryn Montgomery enabled Faye Garrett to head one home. This goal spurred Lancaster to continue playing football despite the resilience of the opposing side to turn it into a poor excuse for a match. For the rest of the second half Lancaster continued to look threatening and deserved much more from the game. Although they also deserved much more from the opposing side who had won the league and should have had more pride in themselves.

By all accounts, the game was going to be an interesting one, the last game against this team included a controversial free kick which enabled Liverpool to win. However no body expected the game to be as entertaining as it was, two yellow cards, several reckless tackles later, Lancaster ended up winning 3-0 and gaining a place in knockouts.

Cest la vie to this odd Sunday game and onto nationals. Well done to the entire Lancaster Womens team. And a special mention goes to Jenny Murphy and Catherine McCartan who played absolutely brilliantly and were voted joint player of the match by the rest of the team.