Crystal Palace Ladies FC

Our third away game of the year found us up against high flyers Fleet Town who we last met in the cup competition back in November.
We had a tough game back then and were expecting another one as we tried to make it four wins on the bounce.
We started off brightly again and within the first couple of minutes Brooke found herself clear in Fleet’s penalty box and managed to launch a shot on goal to beat the keeper. It was 0:1 to the Palace and a fantastic start.
Fleet looked a little shell shocked at this turn of events but managed to compose themselves after a few minutes. The rest of the half was one way traffic, with Fleet peppering our goal with shots which Rebecca, our stand in keeper, did well to save.
The defensive line of Anya, Rhianna and Rose stood firm and limited Fleet to some speculative shots. The midfield players, Katie, Ellen and Natalina were working hard to win the ball back whilst Ellie and Brooke, who were playing up front, worked tirelessly to get the ball back from Fleet.
But we could not hold out forever. Fleet scored four goals in as many minutes before half time to take a commanding lead. Once of the goals that Fleet scored was a potential goal of season which Rebecca could do nothing about.
After the half time break, the coaches decided to change things around to try and get us back into the game.
Natalina went in goal whilst Rhianna and Ellen swapped places. From the kick off we seemed to have a determination to get something out of the game and there was some neat forward play between Rhianna, Rebecca and Brooke that resulted in a couple of near misses.
Then, following on from some good work down the right hand side of the pitch from Rhianna, Brooke got the ball in the penalty box again and bravely managed to stab the ball past the advancing opposition keeper to make it 4:2.
We really had in the wind in our sails for a 10 minute spell and almost grabbed another goal back but the Fleet keeper kept our shots at bay.
Fleet had some more chances to score but good handling from Natalina in goal meant that they could not find a way through.
Fleet managed to score another goal in the final minutes following a great cross field pass from one of their players that found their striker unmarked. Natalina had no chance to save and that made it 5:2
So, whilst we were disappointed with the result, we put on a good defensive display for most of the game and showed some true spirit in the second half.
Natalina and Rebecca made some good saves for us. Rose, Anya and Ellen done their best in a ‘backs to the wall’ defensive performance. Ellie always tried and never gave up. Katie always made herself available and used her body strength well. Rhianna has started to play her best football of the season whilst Brooke nabbed two more goals.
Well done to Fleet for their performance, we look forward to their visit to us in March.