18 Nov 2006: Lisbon St Antonys 8-3 Woodbank (HT 4-3)

Today was our first game this season against Woodbank F.C., and today’s winners would go top of the league cup table. The weather was cold and windy once again, this didn’t help Lisbon Girls’ style of play.

Unfortunately Laura had a sore back and wasn’t available to play, but this meant we had only 2 quality substitutes today April and Beth. The game started well and after 2 minutes Lucy played the ball to Jess who calmly scored 1-0, the next goal game on 10 minutes when Woodbank equalised 1-1. The third goal came after 20 minutes when Lisbon lost the ball in midfield and after a swift throw-in, Woodbank pushed forward to see an empty net and scored – where was Ria? Ria had decided to have a nice little chat with her mum. It’s a good job that goal didn’t cost us the game. 1-2. At this point Lisbon started to pass the ball around and on 22 minutes Whitby set Fred up to score her first goal of the game 2-2. This was then followed by Lucy’s only goal of the game, Jess won the ball and played Lucy in on the left side of goal, Lucy hit the ball first time and looped it over the keeper, 3-2. Straight from the kick off Lisbon closed Woodbank down and won the ball back only to put the shot wide, but this didn’t matter as Fred won the goal kick, ran forward and cheekily walked the ball in, 4-2. Woodbank scored their final goal of the game on 34 minutes to make the score 4-3 at half time.

Today’s first half performance was probably the worst all season, our defenders lost their markers repeatedly and too many girls took their eye off the game. (PAY ATTENTION)

In the second half April and Beth swapped places with Frankie and Joely, and now we had the wind behind us and it changed the game. It took us 20 minutes to score our first goal after missing 4 easy chances to increase the lead, the goal came from Ria’s free kick which Fred ran onto and scored to complete her hat-trick (well done) 5-3. Lisbon completely dominated the game in the second half and we decided to swap Ria for Fred in goal and on 61 minutes Robyn crossed the ball to Jess who scored her final goal of the game 6-3. On 63 minutes Aphra got her first assist this season and set up Hanifa who scored comfortably against the Woodbank keeper 7-3. The final goal was scored with 4 minutes left on the clock, and this time it was Ria, who smashed the ball in from distance to make amends for her first half mistake, Joely got the assist. Full time 8-3,

Today’s game wasn’t great to watch and I was really disappointed with our first half performance, too many girls had below par performances (YOU KNOW WHO YOU ARE). But once again Lisbon won the game comfortably, and today was our eighth win of the season, so congratulations.

P.S. Best move of match was Hanifa’s cross which Fred headed straight at the keeper, (unlucky not to score)

Well done

Dave, Pat and Claire.

Goals: 1^st half – Jess, Fred, Lucy, Fred;
2^nd half – Fred, Jess, Hanifa, Ria
Player of the Match: Hanifa