Athletico Girls v Birkdale D
September 28th, 2009 by NoelWarham| Date: | Sunday 27th September 2009 |
| Location: | Orrell Road, Litherland |
| Result: | Athletico Girls (2) Birkdale D (1) |
The game got under way on a pleasant Sunday afternoon. Birkdale girls struggled at first to get out of their own half as Athletico pressed, but the defence of G Cunliffe, E Core and C Mentha and keeper E Harrison stood firm, and eventually the game evened out. Birkdale, however looked out of sorts. The deadlock was broken by an accidental own goal by a Birkdale player who was trying to block a shot which deflected into the net. The midfield of L Smith, T Elliot, R Hubbard and C Molyneux - with V Grocott coming on as sub - battled hard but the game was narrow with little width. Soon Birkdale applied some good pressure resulting in a great long range effort from R Hubbard which made the score line 1-1.
The second half commenced with Birkdale playing slightly better but still far from their best. L Edmondson had a couple of good chances after managing to lose the two defenders who where constantly marking her. More substitutions rolled on and off with the introduction of A Welford. Birkdale began to look tired, several girls had been on the sick list that week and some right up until the day before the match. I believe that this contributed to the eventual result. During the second half both teams had their chances but most notably Athletico had two very good shots forcing one fine and one outstanding save from keeper E Harrison. It wasn’t to be Birkdale’s day today though, as they conceded with only a couple of minutes left to play making it 2-1. Although they threw everything into the remaining minutes pushing A Welford up front and nearly equalised, it wasn’t to be. The game closed 2-1 to Athletico.
