Birkdale United AFC

WOW! What a game!

Anyone reading this who wasn’t at the game, has missed out, I only hope I give the game some justice in this match report.

Today saw the top 2 sides in the league go head to head. Crosby Stuart, reigning league champions, record in the league 2007-2008, 2008-2009

Played 20
Won 19
Drew 1
Lost 0

Last Season Birkdale North played Crosby Stuart twice in the league losing both times 10-0 and 6-0. Birkdale North have never scored against Crosby Stuart in a league game. These facts show how good Crosby Stuart are as a team and it was going to take something special for them to ever be beaten. At the start of the season we assembled a brand new squad, which we thought could challenge for the league, and today they proved us right, by not only beating Crosby Stuart, but dominating the entire game and reducing Crosby Stuart to long ball and long shots.

Crosby girls were under pressure from the first whistle, only five minutes after kick off Birkdale girls had already hit the post twice, the pressure that the Birkdale girls put on Crosby Stuart was very impressive, and this didn’t let the home team settle into the game, the Birkdale girls kept possesion of the ball and they used it wisely, and with some clever passing and good movement opened Crosby up time and time again. With half of the first half played, and Birkdale failing to put away the chances, it was Crosby who started to step up to the challenge, because they knew they were under pressure at their own home ground, and with 10 minutes of the first half left it came. A long range shot from a Crosby player was tipped onto the bar by E. Kelly, the ball dropped down on the line, and first to react was the Crosby striker. 1-0 Crosby. Credit to the BIrkdale girls though, their heads never went down, and they carried on dominating the game with the occasional Crosby break. Birkdale went into half time 1-0 down.

The second half started, and again it had a very fast tempo with Crosby wanting to add to there lead and Birkdale wanting to equalise. With 5 minutes of the second half played a goal came, and it was the Birkdale girls who had scored it.  Following a testing corner from E. Ormerod, there was a scramble in the Crosby box, and the ball was finally poked into the goal by N. Smith. Spirits were lifted, as this was the first goal Birkdale had scored against Crosby in the league, and it really lifted the girls confidence.

Two minutes after the goal though, came some controversey, E. Ormerod whipped in a dangerous looking corner which was parried into the goal. E. Ormerod had already started celebrating, but the referee shouted play on, saying the Crosby defender had cleared the ball on the line. The girls were starting to think it wasn’t going to be their day. Hitting the post twice, a clear goal disallowed all they needed now was for Crosby to score again and shut up shop. But luckily that never happened with creative players such as, E. Ormerod and T. Meadows, rocks at the back with S. Kelly and R. Musker, A female Makelele in defensive midfielder with A. Young, and supersub herself K. Singleton looking to come off the bench for the third successive game and score.

A few minutes after the goal had been disallowed Birkdale recieved another corner and E. Ormerod again stepped up to whip the ball in, this time adding more power and swerve to the corner, but this time the Crosby keeper could only parry it into her own net, and this time it did count. 2-1 Birkdale!  Now all the girls had to do was defend like they have never defended before, but the Crosby onslaught was going to come, and it did. Crosby tried everything to get through the defence, but the girls stood strong and credit to them never let anything through.

The last five minutes saw Crosby mount a serious attack, and they came close to scoring again a number of times. With only four minutes left on the clock, the Birkdale defence intercepted the ball and broke with speed, the ball found K. Singleton who whizzed past two Crosby midfielders, and with only a Crosby defender and the keeper to beat, Singleton manged to pass the defender, but it looked like she had run wide of the goal, but somehow the ball ended up in the back of the net, 3-1 to Birkdale. The girls were in dreamworld.

That goal sealed the game, it was Birkdale’s day, and when the full time whistle went, all of the girls exploded into a roar of celebration. Birkdale United North are the first team ever to beat this Crosby Stuart team. That is an achievement in itself.

Player of the Match; today was a girl who played with composure never looked nervous on the ball, always wanted the ball and won every tackle she went for. POM today was R.Musker.

Opposition Player of the Match; The opposition POM today was A.Young.

This entry was posted on Saturday, October 11th, 2008 at 8:30 pm and is filed under Match Reports 08/09. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.