Ely Ladies 2s v Haverhill 1s

After a 3-0 win at their first friendly last week, Ely Ladies 2s were optimistic about their first league match of the season against Haverhill’s first team.

After a windy and cold warmup, and socially distant ‘sticks in’, they launched into the game with high hopes - last October they had beaten Haverhill by 5 goals. However, that was not to happen in this match, as despite the valiant efforts of the three forwards, Zara, Ciara T and Ciara C, Ely got no goals past Haverhill’s defenders.

It was a different story for Haverhill however, as they managed to score three goals in the first half, regardless of the strong hits out of the D by Ely defenders, Karen, Molly, Abi and Polly.

Many long corners meant a multitude of passes to Abi before she passed it up the wing to Millie, or to Emily who performed many long hits to get the ball up the pitch where the forwards were ready to receive the ball.

To stop the Haverhill attackers getting the ball closer to the goal, the Ely defenders were aided by the strong press the midfielders and forwards achieved, stopping some of Haverhill’s hits and dribbling their way up the pitch to attempt to score a goal.

In the second half, after a motivating talk from Karen, they attacked and defended with lots of energy, although tired from their previous efforts. Unluckily, Haverhill managed to get another three goals past the goalkeeper, Rhiannon, who still performed incredibly well to defend many other attempts of goal scoring from Haverhill (even though one goal was deflected into the goal by a player’s shin!).

Although they didn’t achieve scoring a goal, lots of attempts were made, with strong runs up the pitch by Ciara C before passing into the D to Zara, supported by Ciara T and midfielders Millie and Gemma.

Luckily, due to a foot on the line on Haverhill’s part, there was a penalty flick awarded, and it was taken by Ciara; unfortunately for Ely it was saved by the goalkeeper.

This wasn’t the only misstep that Haverhill made however, as the referee stepped in for a green card to be issued due to the amount of fouls their team had performed.

Despite the final score being 0-6, everyone felt that it was a good match, with lots of strong play to suggest a successful season ahead, especially for the first league match of the season after not playing together for 6 months!