Back to league action today with a trip into Canterbury to face Prince of Wales who we have already played twice this season with one win and one loss against them. We were at full strength again with only Isabelle Tulett and Emily Hayward both out with injuries. In extremely blustery conditions it was always going to be a difficult game especially as the wind was up and down the pitch. To stand any chance of winning the league this year we need to maintain our winning run without dropping anymore points and hope Long Lane drop points against another team. With six games remaining and both teams have difficult fixtures to complete their seasons it could go down to the last game of the season. Herne Bay Ladies are focused on the job in hand and are taking each game as it comes in their stride.

We won the toss and selected to play against the wind and get the difficult half out of the way. The ladies knew to be successful in the first half we needed to try and keep the ball on the floor, this proved difficult with the added problem of a bobbly pitch we battled on. With the conditions being as they were any fluent play was lost but this didn’t stop us creating chances and causing the Prince of Wales defence problems. It took a while to have our real first chance of the game when Carly Farrow delivered a ball for Harriet Chapman to head onto the cross bar, the linesman said it was over but the referee played on and the following shot once again hit the cross bar. From here we put severe pressure on the POW goal and were rewarded with some good play in the 30th minute by Kate Foster who was upturned in the penalty box for Lesley Kay to calmly slot to the keepers right to secure the first goal of the game. It took 10 minutes to score the second, Vicky Holness became provider and delivered a ball to the near post for Chapman to prod home her first goal of the game. Half time shortly followed and it was a job well done for the girls in the first half.

Herne Bay Ladies needed to get a grip of the conditions early as through balls were just rolling into the opposition’s goalkeeper. It took 15 minutes into the second half to score the next goal which proved to be the killer goal. Harriet Chapman cut in from the left and wrong footed the goalkeeper and placed it at the near post to double her tally. Two minutes later, Vicky Holness was upended just outside the box and from the resulting free kick put the ball into the top right hand corner well out of reach of the POW goalkeeper. From here the game got a little bit scrappy and the referee lost a little bit of control as POW resorted to kicking and targeting our players. But our ladies stood strong and let the football do the talking! Harriet Chapman completed her fourth hat trick in the same amount of weeks with Vicky Holness and Carly Farrow completing the scoring.

The defence and Breeze Handley in goal had relatively little to do during the game but another clean sheet shows that these girls are proud of not only scoring but making sure teams don’t go away with any joy at all.

I am very lucky to have such a great bunch of ladies who believe in what Herne Bay are trying to achieve. The confidence is showing in both going forward and defending, we set ourselves out to be hard to beat. We are scoring freely and not conceding, a tough test awaits us on Tuesday when once again we entertain Gillingham Ladies in the semi-final of the Ryman’s Women’s Cup at Winch’s Field 7:45KO. Then next Sunday we are away to Anchorians in the Semi-Final of the League Cup.

Herne Bay Ladies Match Squad: Breeze Handley, Emma Brown, Rachel Tracy, Beth Nugent, Debbie Blackmore, Lesley Kay, Kate Foster, Sarah Holmes, Carly Farrow, Vicky Holness, Harriet Chapman, Lauren Wiltshire, Charlie Hayes, Bella Smith, Elizabeth Lehan

Player of Match: Lesley Kay

Match details

Match date

Sun 23 Feb 2014

Kickoff

14:00

Team overview

Seventh Heaven as Bay Ladies Maintain Title Hopes

In extremely blustery conditions it was always going to be a difficult game

Match details

Match date

Kickoff

Team Sponsors