Wed 14 Apr 2010
Steel City's small pitch is yet another ground that restricts the flowing football that the belles like to play, the sooner the girls move up to a full size pitch and can better exploit their ability to move and take opponents on the better. To get an idea of the dimensions, consider Shona as keeper kicking the ball from hands as a 13 year old and having to pull her kicks for fear of them running off the far end of the pitch.
The first half was fast paced, with furious football from each side. The pitch size led to a kicking competition between the 2 goalies with forwards scrambling to get an elusive final touch. Gradually the pace of the game settled down and the flanks started to be exploited. Steel City showed that they have pace up front as on one of their attacks they caught our defence wrong footed and clipped the right post having given Shona no chance to save it.
On 24 minutes we got a corner, the ball was floated over to far post and Titch managed to hook the ball back intowards the centre of the 6 yard box and there was Nouby to spin ballerina-like (bet thats not been said about you before!!) and lash home from 3 yards for the opener.
The scorer remained like that going into half-time. The girls were told to maintain the pace but concentrate on playing passing football rather than getting involved in a smash and run competition. The girls duly went out and their second-half performance showed that they had both listened and applied that.
What proved to be the decisive blows were struck in the 7th and 8th minutes when the Belles got 2 goals in a minute to leave Steel City somewhat bewildered. They'd coped well until that point and now found themselves 3 goals down somewhat unfairly because they had made a good contest out of things. In the 7th minute Grace Sanderson got the ball on the right wing, cut intowards the goal and fired a shot which deceived everybody and went through a mass of bodies going unassisted into the goal at chest height by the far post.
There was to be no respite for the home team and only a minute later it was 3-0 Molly Ecott made herself the stand-out top striker with only one match remaining when a low shot went under the Steel City Goalkeeper.
If Steel City could have been expected to fold like a pack of cards there was a shock to come. Only 2 minutes later a defensive lapse left the Sheffield side with the opportunity to reduce the deficit when a bit of loose marking left one of their strikers one-on-one with Shona and it was the simplest of tap ins from 3 yards to make the score 3-1.
Well.... the Belles love a challenge so from the restart they went down the other end and made it 4-1. Molly took a throw from the right which found Nouby... she knocked the ball across to Lori, who made no mistake... 3 goal advantage restored.
The remaining 24 minutes were played out with a succession of attacks from the Belles peppered with forays towards our goal by the hosts, but no more goals. Every single player was sharp tonight, Grace was on form, Molly was her usual locomotive self down the wing and Nouby terrorised anybody who thought that they time to dwell on the ball. I've never seen the ball headed as often by a Belles side either, Titch being the main header tonight.. now we know why she's so small... high balls have compressed her into the ground.
No Lass of the Grass award for this game because it would do a dis-service to the other players.
