There was disappointment for United’s women on Sunday, as they went down to an unfortunate 2-1 defeat away at Abingdon.
The yellows made the long trip up to Oxfordshire to play Abingdon United, who themselves were victorious in becoming champions last season in the their league and like Steve Elswood’s team took their position in the National League for the first time ever.
Abingdon may have been higher up in the table so far this season, but at the end of this 90 minutes, it would’ve been difficult to separate either of the sides in terms of ability. The game showed yet again how our ladies are now settling into life into the National League and competing with all the teams in the league apart from the two teams running away with the league, in Exeter City and AFC Bournemouth.
It was another case of nearly but not quite for the yellows having lost a game by the odd goal for the fourth time this season against established National League teams.
The girls dominated the first 20 minutes playing some positive attacking football with both Ella Stephens and Emily Eaton causing huge problems on the wings and United grabbed the opener after 11 minutes with a lovely through ball in behind the back two of Abingdon allowed Tracey Cross playing upfront as a striker to run on to the ball compose herself and calmly slot the ball into the bottom right hand corner of the Abingdon goal for a much deserved early lead.
However, the home side got back into the game, five minutes later as Ella Stephens appeared to be pushed in the back and the ball being laid off to an oncoming midfielder who curled the ball fantastically into the United goal with Emma Ayres goal the United No.1 not being able to do anything about such a well hit finish.
United defended stoutly under a little bit more pressure for the next 10 minutes of the half with United centre-back Lucy Palmer excelling throughout the afternoon showing what a player she is turning into with a strong performance throughout. Powerful in winning the ball on numerous occasions getting in front of her opponents and striding forward confidently to link up United plays.
The hosts went ahead on the 36th minute a great parry wide from an angle drive from Ayres resulted in a Abingdon corner. The ball floated in with the united back line not picking up at the back post and a free header gave the hosts a 2-1 lead at halftime. A half that had very little between the two sides and gave United a lot of confidence going into the break.
Clearly, buoyed by a confident halftime in the dressing room United came out full of energy and controlled the second half for long periods and clearly dominated the possession stats.
They created several chances which resulted in a couple of fantastic saves by the Abingdon keeper from distance and close range including a volley from captain Cross that with any other connection would have buried itself in the Abingdon net.
It felt like United would grab one major opportunity to get back into the game and that did happen when a ball into the box by Rhi Bailey fell to Tee Kaptein whose shot struck the hand of the defending Abingdon player. The referee, who was outstanding throughout, awarding United a penalty much to the annoyance of the opposing dugout.
Tee Kaptein stepped up to take the kick to give United the point they deserved and set them up for a barnstorming last 10 minutes to win the game.
She struck the penalty well lifting it to the right hand side of the goal, but it was well judged by the Abingdon goalkeeper who produced a fantastic one-handed save to parry the ball wide and the Abington defenders were table to clear the ball out of harms way.
The girls kept probing, never giving up with Ella Stephens and Emily Eaton given more forward roles when United attacked to create four in attack. Abingdon managed to hold on and celebrated in some style what they knew was a very close and hard fought victory against the yellows.
United Manager Steve Elswood spoke proudly after the game with his comments.
“So proud of the ladies this afternoon, fantastic performance and although we are disappointed we’ve took great heart and encouragement from the 90 minutes of football. For any neutral that turned up it was an end to end game with two teams who won their respective leagues last year going at it both not wanting to give anything away.
“We feel gutted for the ladies – yet again it’s another game this season that has just slipped away from us by the odd goal. However the heart and fight that we showed again against a team that sits in the top half of the table just goes to show apart from the two big teams in this league that are running away with it that we can compete with any of the other remaining sides in the division.
“We must use these feelings of confidence for the second half of the season and along with adding some new players to bolster our numbers along with a couple more players returning back into the squad we know and feel we can stay up in this league and we can maintain our status and we can also get better too out there.
“We are all really excited about the rest of this league season and the fixtures we have. To have only lost by the odd goal in several games we now feel we can turn those matches around into the victories we need when we play those teams again and this group deserves that run as they have shown such fight against a lot of challenges this season. We just need lady luck to come our way. I’m confident it will very soon.
“A run of winning momentum gives no better feeling and that will get us over the line and sustain our place in the league for next season which has always been the aim for this season.”
Photos: Jamos Pics