UNDER 16 GIRLS MATCH REPORT

The 2008/09 Season...

Congratulations to the Girls for another fantastic season resulting in a second consecutive League and Cup double. Not bad in two seasons of 11-aside and playing up a year!

The stats for the 08/09 season are:
P W D L GF GA GD
League 18 17 1 0 125 7 +118
Cup* 9 7 1 1 19 3 +16

[*Cup includes FA and Tesco Cup, including shortened tournament format games for Regional finals]

The League
This was tighter this year, with the half season split removing our initial goal advantage over the other teams and Keynsham pushing us all the way after a 1-1 draw. The final game was the League decider against Keynsham and produced a game that both sides can be proud of, showing great commitment by all the players. Happily we managed to take our chances and ran out 2-0 winners but it was a very close game. So commiserations to Keynham and we look forward to more quality games next season!
Overall the quality in the league had improved with teams becoming more organised and harder to break down, although our excellent passing and running into space still shone through in the end and not forgetting some quality defending and goalkeeping!

The Cup
With several teams dropping out what looked like a long route to the final turned out to be just two games for the FA part of the competition, but with the pressure that a slip up would see us out of the competition! The semi-final saw us see off old rivals Gloucester City 6-0 and the final against Bristol Central saw us run out 5-1 winners, getting us through to the Tesco part of the competition in style.

The SW Regional finals at the BAWA grounds, Filton, was a tournament format competition against the other FA cup winners in the region. Again congratulations to the girls who's hard work made it seem easy in the end with only one goal conceded and four out of five wins, compared to last years nail bitter where we were within 2 minutes of going out! However it was harder than the final tables indicate with all the other teams showing patches of real quality in their play. But good player support allowed us to control most of the games - although with perhaps some more finishing practice required for when we're in those tight games!

This win saw us through to Leicester City again for the English National Finals knock out competition, and on as the first game again!
After a sleepy start, which saw us go 0-1 behind, the girls came back and played some great football against a tough London Girls teams to end up 2-1 winners of the semi-Final – one better than last year and a great team effort.
This final was against Manchester City Girls - the richest club in the world! This was a close game with both defences dominating and limiting both sides to half chances. In the second half City did gain the ascendancy for a period but good cover defending combined with good positioning/saves by our keeper kept them at bay. By Extra-Time things were even again but with both sides having given it 100% and with nothing else left in the tank. The brought a penalty shoot-out which saw us go out 2-4 despite one fine save, but congratulations to the girls on a superb performance throughout the day – you did us proud.

It's also worth mentioning that in the course of the Tescos Cup we picked up the following player awards: 1 x Best Player, 1 x Best Midfielder, 2 x Best Defender and 1 x Best Keeper. So well done to all those players, and their team mates who made it possible for them to catch the eye of the officials.

The Supporters
Finally just a brief thank you to everyone who's helped and supported the girls throughout the season in: both managing and coaching the team, collecting the subs, getting us to matches on time(!), giving lifts, fund raising, manning the teas and coffees, refereeing and running the line etc.

So a big thank you, and as a reward you get to do it all again next season!

END