BUCS Premier League
Wednesday 21st October

After the great result that the team achieved last week, the team went into their first away game with high hopes of coming away with three points. This week the women’s football team were given the tough test of a game with the University of Bath, a university that is well known for their sporting prowess. The start of the journey didn’t provide the best of omens with the Coach Lee Moyce stalling the mini-bus not once, but twice.

After a tour of the Bath University campus, the car park was finally found. By now the team were already running late, and got out onto the pitch with less than half an hour to spare. The warm up was rushed due to the lack of time available and it showed when the match kicked off. The first 10 minutes of the game was very scrappy, with neither team able to keep hold of the ball. As the first half went on Pompey managed to get themselves into the game and play the ball around properly, with centre midfields Flo Lunn and Sarah Wilmer controlling the game. This showed when the passing cut open the bath defence and Victoria Lewis went extremely close with a lob on the Bath keeper. This pattern continued and striker Vicky hit the crossbar and post, as well as going extremely close on several occasions. At the other end of the pitch Bath rarely threatened Pompey’s goal with the back four doing the same job as the previous week and keeping any threats at bay.

Towards the end of the first half right winger Rachel Catling went close with a shot that barely trickled past the post. In Pompey’s half of the pitch a lack of concentration allowed Bath to slide in their striker and it was only some last ditch tackles from Sara Hopes and Lauren Carnell that prevented Portsmouth from going into the break a goal down. With a little bit of tiredness kicking in the game became scrappy again and just before half time Bath managed to capitalise on a mix up in the Pompey defence to create a goal scoring opportunity, but hit the crossbar, came back off it and was cleared by one of the Pompey defenders to relieve the pressure.

At half time Portsmouth had the right to feel aggrieved at the fact that the score was still 0 – 0, but every player knew that the game was there for the taking. When the second half kicked of Pompey were on the back foot as Bath had come out fighting after their poor first half performance. This was no problem to Portsmouth, with both fullbacks Kirstie White and Laura Sharkey stopping crosses from the wide areas. Some good stops from Sally-Anne Thompson in goal and more great challenges from Sara and Lauren prevented Bath from scoring first.

After one of Bath’s attacks Sally-Anne gathered the ball easily and sent a long kick towards Nieshia Boal and Vicky upfront. The Bath centre back misjudged the ball and it bounced straight over her head for Nieshia to head on towards Vicky who hit her shot from outside the area and scored with the ball rifling into the top corner of the net. This only infuriated Bath and they threw everything at Pompey but again, like last week the well organised defence stood firm. With Bath liable to a counter attack Pompey were looking to get the ball up field quickly to try and get that all important second goal to secure the win. This chance came towards the end of the game with Rachel receiving the ball from the back. After dribbling forward she picked out Vicky with a great through ball. Vicky managed to keep her composure to slide the ball under the advancing Bath keeper to score her second goal and secure the win for Pompey. All Portsmouth had to do was see out the remaining minutes which they managed with ease.

Another great team performance with everyone playing as best they can to achieve the result that they wanted.