Division 5 Champions

On a beautiful spring day we took to the pitch knowing that a win would see us crowned as champions. The first fifteen minutes saw a sustained period of forward pressure with the forwards combining well but unable to beat Oxford's defence. Corner after corner went unrewarded as their keeper dealt with shot after shot. It seemed we would need to follow up at close quarters to beat her - or go arial. Slipped the ball by today's Queen of Assists Sandy', Tracy paused, sized up the options before calmly scooping the ball up and past the goal keeper. Shortly after Mary, tenacious as always, crossed the ball for the ideally placed Liv to slot the ball in at the far post.
Oxford continued to attack , making good use of the extra space left by our increasingly advanced backs. Fran made a couple of excellent saves, but in a goalmouth scrabble the ball crossed the line giving Oxford a deserved goal.
This seemed to galvanise our team into stepping up a gear, and we were soon stringing together several passes and letting the ball do more of the work. One such attack saw a shot deflected from the keeper for Trina to improvise with a kind of 'reverse upright - it's a long way down for a sweep - scoop' into the goal. With increasingly vocal support from our loyal supporters, whose numbers were swelled by some of the Ladies 3's who'd come out to encourage us over the line, our heads were truly up. Another fierce cross from Liz or Sandy (I was getting very confused by this stage, dazzled by the magical 'fiddling' by our former 1's players) was met by a delighted Henna at the far post. With our backs determined to get on the score sheet, Tammy and Karen kept appearing in the attacking D. It was entirely fitting that man of the match Karen scored our final goal with a text book reverse sweep that gave the keeper no chance.
5-1 to Reading, the final whistle was blown and the celebrations begun. Well done to all and thanks to our umpires.