It was a fine sunny Saturday which brought out the crowds to see GCW v Grange Ladies on Saturday. The two teams provided an exciting and high tempo game with goals to send the crowds home happy. Sadly for GCW a result of 4-2 against meant the home side were less happy than the visitors.
The game started brightly for GCW with good pressure on the Grange defence and some well formed passing and attacking from the GCW girls. However all the good work was undone ten minutes in when a ball into midfield was difficult to control and Fay Bruce was robbed and the resulting overload was trundled home to put the visitors ahead.
GCW however took a minute or two and then found their stride again and a well structured attack produced a penalty corner. The new striker Connie Hatfield stepped up and fired a strong low shot too pacey for the visitors and the game was 1-1. It looked like this was the pre cursor to something when Eleanor Barr turned at the top of the circle two minutes later and fired a shot home for a 2-1 lead to GCW.
The game was a bit of a ding dong affair with both sides very progressive when maybe a bit of composure and sideways passing might have been the better order of the day. A forward pass late in the half was intercepted and a fast Grange break down the right found a willing forward in the circle to net for a 3-2 lead to Grange.
The second half was much more about GCW pressure and not too many clean chances, a couple of corners nearly went in but not quite. Then a ball from GCWs defence found a willing Grange player who played a bouncing ball into the circle which was keenly touched by the forward to put Grange 4-2 up.
There was no more scoring but a lot of huffing and puffing without any end product as the sides fought the game to the end. Final result 4-2 Grange.
The GCW 2s were on immediately after and the crowd stayed to watch. A side a little understrength due to the holidays fought well against an experienced Grammar side. At half time it was 0-0 but two goals in 2 minutes for Grammar seemed to have the game settled but a fine corner deflection from Jo Thomas to direct Rose Main’s strike made the game tight. Experience however told out in the end and Grammar survived all the pressure to sneak a 2-1 win.
