Crystal Palace Ladies FC

Our last game was the furthest that we have travelled so far, on a bright, sunny afternoon.
Due to illness within the squad we were down to nine players so the team knew that they had to play an intelligent game and conserve energy when they could.
It was probably our best start to a game all season. From the outset we played a pressing game to a very high tempo, ensuring that the opposition could not settle. There were a number of excellent passing moves on the right hand side of the pitch - mostly involving Ella, Rebecca and Brooke – and we came close to scoring a couple of times, only for the goalkeeper to deny us.
But Guildford could not hold out for long. A passing move down the middle sent Brooke on a weaving run. She took advantage of a gap in the opposition defence and made no mistake with a hard shot that that left the goalkeeper with little chance of saving.
From the kick off, our superior passing game was still unsettling Guildford. This time, a move started on the left hand side where Natalina used her power and pace to get the ball over to Brooke who whizzed a shot past the goalkeeper. It was 0:2 to us and it was the least that we deserved.
There followed a period of pressure from Guilford where they had a number of corners. But our defence were well organised and managed to repel any threat towards or goal. Rhianna and Katie were proving up to task of defending our goal - Katie was strong in the tackle and passed the ball well out of defence whilst Rhianna was using her pace and upper body strength to deny the opposition any goalscoring opportunities.
There were a couple of occasions where the opposition broke away but they were denied a goal by some fine goalkeeping from Carmela who showed off her stopping skills, with both her hands and her feet.
Rose and Blythe were linking up well in midfield, Blythe had a particular good first half – showing good control of the ball of numerous occasions.
As the second half was coming to a close, Rebecca found herself in the opposition penalty box – she turned and fizzed a shot straight past the goalkeeper into the bottom right hand corner of the goal to make it 0:3 to us.

The half time break came and Amin decided to change positions to make sure that the team could conserve energy.
We started off the second half much like the first half – on top of the game and denying the opposition space and time.
Brooke started a trademark mazy run and managed to finish it off with a shot that rifled into the top of the net to give us a 4 goal advantage.
Soon after, Rose got the ball on the left hand side of the pitch, dribbled towards the opposition goal and placed a shot into the right hand side of the goal to make it 0:5.
Our team were relentless – they carried on attacking and Brooke managed a shot in goal that squeezed passed the goalkeeper to make it 0:6 to us.
At this stage, fatigue was setting in and Guildford were getting more shots in on goal, only to be denied by some good saves from Carmela.
Finally, Guildford managed to score, a great strike from their best player meant that the score was 1:6.

The final whistle blew soon after and our girls were deserved winners. Well done to all of them.