One more win away from league title

Herne Bay Ladies vs. London Corinthians Res League 28th April 2013
Result: Herne Bay Ladies 5 – London Corinthians Res 0

The penultimate match of the league saw us travel to New Eltham to face London Corinthian Reserves. A horrendous journey up to London with traffic being a nightmare, we eventually arrived at five to two! With a quick team talk and a short warm up the ladies were focused with the job in hand. The pitch was extremely long and the grass needed a cut!
Today was just about getting the result needed to help complete the treble, we had Enya Lynch unavailable due to illness and a few due to family events and work, but the squad today showed how much we have in depth and that they can adapt to different positions when required. London Corinthians didn’t really threaten throughout the games and what joy they had going forward were met by a strong back four of Shona Clark, Chantelle Bleau, Rachel Tracy and Charlie Hayes.

The game took its normal route of a slow start and patience was essential to get the result needed. Before we finally scored the first goal, we had several very good chances including hitting the post and a fantastic header from Chantelle Bleau only to see it hit the crossbar. The first goal was only a matter of time in coming as chances were now plenty. The first goal came on the 25th minute. Chantelle Bleau picked up the ball from a rare London Corinthians attack and went on a mazy run going past the Corinthians strikers, then rode a couple of tackles before threading a through ball to Kiya Mills who calmly put the ball past the goalkeeper. It didn’t take too long before the next one came along this time it was a cross from Kate Foster which Isabelle Tulett got a touch on it to make it two nil!

We still had more chances to make the score line more secure before half time but no more goals were added.

The second half, we kicked down the slope. Knowing that the current score line would be enough and the fact we didn’t need to score anymore goals to win the game, we seem to take the foot off the pedal and London Corinthians started to get back into the game, however with the spaces now opening up, we scored our third on the counter attack through a Vicky Holness strike, her second of the game just came after a few minutes of her first, with a ball driven into the box from Isabelle Tulett saw Vicky take the last touch put the game out of reach for Corinthians. The match as a whole seemed to go quite quickly and before we knew it there was just under ten minutes left of the game, just enough time for Kiya Mills to score her second of the game, a fine strike from outside the box.

A good, all round team performance from everyone. Some individual players showing some fantastic composure dealing with pressure when needed to. Vicky Holness got player of the match from the other team, but not taking that away from her today as she has been outstanding in every game this year, but Chantelle Bleau had one of her best games today! Solid in defence and looked to go forward with purpose at given opportunities, coming close to scoring on a couple of occasions.
One more game to go this season to complete a truly remarkable year!

This is being played on the 12th May away to Anchorians 2nd and a win will see us win the league and finish the treble! A tough last fixture but with the same focus we have had throughout the season it will cap off what has been an excellent and outstanding first season as a team.

Team: Emily Johnson, Shona Clark, Chantelle Bleau, Rachel Tracy, Charlie Hayes, Kate Foster, Lauren Wiltshire, Lesley Kay, Isabelle Tulett, Vicky Holness, Kiya Mills, Clare Brown

Player of Match: Vicky Holness