Potters Bar 1s v Blueharts 1s

3rd October 2009

Potters Bar Ladies 1s played their first away game of the season in Hitchin against Blueharts on Saturday. Bar knew they were in for a tough game as Blueharts had won their first 2 games of the season but were determined to get a good result.

The game started at a quick tempo with both teams working well through midfield and producing many attacking opportunities despite the sandy and bouncy pitch. A solid central midfield formed by Sue Richardson and Karen Lawson kept the Blueharts early attacks at bay.

Blueharts kept pilling on the pressure on Bar’s defence and some outstanding goal keeping from Mo Gough and defensive work by Lawson kept Bar from conceding early on. Bar’s newest player Charlotte Pickup made her debut for the club on right midfield and demonstrated some excellent defending and attacking skills.

Midway through the first half, Potters Bar had a break out of defence where the ball found itself through midfield and up to Sarah Jowett who passed out right to Vanessa Porter who ran into the circle and put her shot away to put Bar 1-0 up.

This frustrated Blueharts who seemed to up their game and kept attacking into the Potters Bar defending circle, but Gough stood strong in goal and cleared many strikes that came her way. Blueharts were awarded a short corner shortly after and the umpire saw something she was not happy with, believing that a Bar defender deliberately prevented a goal from being scored, and awarded Blueharts with a penalty flick.

Potters Bar defence were rightly angry with the decision and could only watch as the strong Blueharts centre forward wrong footed Gough and put the ball in the back of the net to bring the score to 1-1.

The second half saw breaks into attack by both teams. Bar were unlucky not to take the lead as both Jowett and Porter were prevented from putting the ball in the back of the net by some excellent saves by the Blueharts keeper.

Towards the end of the match, Bar were pushed into defence and a Blueharts’ short corner was awarded, the ball was dangerously put into the top right hand corner of the goal which was ruled out by both umpires.

The game finished as a 1-1 draw. The team awarded their Man of the Match award to a very deserving Mo Gough who continually pulled out save after save to prevent Blueharts from scoring.

Team: Mo Gough, Ruth Spencer, Karen Lawson, Faye Jowett, Laura Cullen, Sue Richardson, Jo Spinks, Caroline Stanners, Charlotte Pickup, Lucy Edwards, Sarah Jowett, Vanessa Porter.

Goalscorer: Vanessa Porter