Crystal Palace Ladies FC

The Palace girls entertained Chertsey in their final league game of the season and produced a solid professional display resulting in a resounding victory.

The girls started on the front foot and took the lead after 6 mins when Ella Aylett and Connie Lowman combined on the left to create space for Lowman to fire in a dangerous cross, Bekki Keyte flicked it on to Ash Marchant who’s cross shot was diverted in by Linda Mehmeti, the goal stood despite desperate claims for offside from the visitors. Chertsey hit back on 13 mins with a fine volley from a cross on the right despite Eleanor Mulligan’s fine effort to get finger tips on it, this spurred the visitors on as the pressed for a second but a real feature of the first half was the brilliant central defensive partnership of Lucy Baker and Abi Deene, Captain Baker has really found confidence in her organization skills recently and marshalled the back four superbly whilst Deene seemed to be everywhere with blocks, interceptions and important defensive headers throughout in an impressive display. Just on the stroke of half time Palace broke with Sadiye Yilmaz down the left, her slotted pass found Keely Nazareth who rounded the keeper and slotted home to give us a 2-1 lead at the break.

Following an unsettling and sometimes nervous first period Palace came out looking much better and more confident in the second half. Alice Fuller began to pull the strings and control the midfield with her usual busy game and it was her pass that set Nazareth on her way to her second goal to make it 3-1. With Palace now in complete control Mehmeti completed a brace and Nazareth her hat trick to extend the lead to 5-1, the last 20 mins were dominated by our girls which saw Tyra Wilson outmuscle the defence twice only to be denied by the keeper and two superb long range efforts from Okasia Brown, one of which flew just wide and one that was brilliantly saved. Finally, outstanding winger Keyte delivered two sublime corners that caused confusion in the box and scrambled clear to deny a sixth goal.

A very professional effort from the girls today with some ‘stand out’ individual performances. Having completed our league programme we sit top of the league and await future results to know our fate. Whatever happens it has been a great league campaign for our first season in adult football and the girls should be very proud of their achievements, we have all learned a lot and the accumulation of 43 points from 20 games had been a real unexpected bonus. We now look forward to some constructive training sessions leading up to the League Final in April!