It was a wet and cold day in Harpenden, but that didn’t stop the girls from getting stuck in from the start. We had a new line-up to organise today, with no subs and a terrible goalkeeper (in myself) – so we needed to be organised and back each other up.

We started well and the ball was moving around the pitch well. Jessica was up front and in the middle of everything, tenacious in attack and tireless in defence all the time backed up by Eleanor running all over the park to chase the ball and disrupt the Harpenden attacks. A great team attack with Josie up the right passing into the middle and Tabitha picking up the ball on the left, bringing it into the circle where after a couple slaps and tackles it was forced through to score a well-deserved goal by Jessica. Harpenden came back on the attack and were kept away, wave after wave by Ruby – who has only recently joined the club and showed some real strength and timing to stop the attacks, with Lily closing down all extra wide runs and bringing the ball back into play quickly for us to counter-attack…as well as scoring an excellent goal, if not at the wrong end of the pitch. If only the goalie did his job and kept out some of the attacks, it would have been a different result.

The final score over the 3 x 15mins sessions was 4-1 and the girls had a great time and tired themselves out. It was great to see them have consistent playing time and super impressive to see them all grow in confidence as the game went along – it’s going to be a great team!!