Wigan vs Birkdale United
February 1st, 2009 by admin| Date: | Sunday 1st February 2009 |
| Location: | Laithwaite Park, Scot Lane, Wigan |
| Result: | Wigan (1)    Birkdale United (2) |
A cold snowy day was the greeting Birkdale Girls received upon their arrival at Wigan’s home pitch. A good warm up and some ball work before that game got the girls ready for the kick off.
Birkdale started very strong and were ready to put in a shift today, Wigan were struggling to keep the Birkdale players away from their goal, within the first 15 minutes Birkdale hit the post on three occasions and somehow the ball rebounded back everytime into a thankful Wigan goalkeepers hands. Birkdale girls stayed positive and patiently played their way through the Wigan defenders, but still they could not convert. Wigan also mounted some good attacks at Birkdale and only for sme fantastic goalkeeping from Birkdale keeper Pierce and defensive work from Manwaring and Slater, Wigan could easily have gone ahead.
At half time the Birkdale management team talked to the girls about keeping positive and staying focused on their game, and the goals would come.
The second half saw Birkdale playing uphill and within a matter of minutes Pilkington grabbed a fantastic goal, a ball through from an advancing Oakley to Pilkington, saw her lay it back to Gibson who played a perfect pass over the top of Pilkington for her to run back onto and bury deep in the net.
Wigan were down hearted as they had played very well, they made some fantastic chances and were unlucky not to equalise on more than one occasion. With almost 12 minutes left to play they did, an advancing three pronged attacking move saw Manwaring holding a Wigan player off, Pierce was advancing from her goal and screamed for the ball, unfortunately Manwaring had already started to lift her foot to clear the ball, and her momentum placed the ball straight in the path of another Wigan striker, who finished perfectly.
Birkdale were shocked by this but changes were quickly made and Birkdale put Wigan straight back under pressure, with just two minutes left it was Pilkington to the rescue again, Oakley and Gibson were again both involved and Pilkington finished perfectly, to give Birkdale a fantastic win, against a strong Wigan side.
