Report

The season finished with the earliest ever kick off granted at the bequest of Wednesdayites from both teams who wanted to get to Hillsbrough for a 12.45 kick off.

With Abi and Georgia on holiday and Lucy and Rachel ruled out through injury we started the game with only 9 players as Jaime was still asleep! However, the girls put in a real battling performance and with Middlewood not doing what I'd expect and passing us to death then the girls were rewarded for their efforts with a very respectable looking scoreline at the end. We held out for around 20 minutes thanks to a couple of last ditch interventions from Anna but she couldn't do anything about the screamer that dipped in over her head to open the scoring - there were chances to clear the ball in the build up and this is the type of punishment that we've had for indecisiveness in this division all season. Anna got her positioning all wrong for the second so a toe poke crept in to the far corner while the 3rd was another beauty from the edge of the area. We were down to 8 at this stage with Hannah feeling unwell but went up to 9 just before half-time when a sleepy looking Jaime rolled up. I was really impressed with Alicia and Elise at full back while Eleanor and Grace worked their socks off in midfield to deny space in front of the back four. Issy had also had a really good half holding the ball up and hassling the Middlewood defence and Grace even managed to get a shot on target towards the end of the half - I think it was the only one of the day.

We managed to field 10 players for the whole of the second half with Hannah feeling a bit better but under orders to take it easy. The girls continued to battle away but clearly tired in the last quarter. We simply tried to defend the edge of the 18 yard box and Lily and Hannah avoided getting caught square much better this half so most Middlewood attacks ended with long range shots or overhit through balls to Anna. They got 2 more in the final quarter with Anna misjudgng a long range effort and their number 12 getting away down the right to finish smartly.

It seems strange to say it but the season actually ended on a bit of a high note despite the 5-0 scoreline, since it was a really good perfornance against one of the top 3 teams and the girls made them work. Today was also Lily's last game after 8 seasons with the club. On her day she was the most confident defender on the ball around and I loved the way that she would look to turn away from on-rushing forwards, giving them the slip just as they thought that they were going to tackle her and rush through to score. Tis a shame to see the back of the lighthouse but we wish her well for the future.

Finally, a thank you to all for sticking with it through what has been a difficult season and we'll get together again in June with an eye towards next season.