A great derby day match

Sunday was derby day as Aylesbury United Ladies travelled just down the road to take on Haddenham in the league. A close game was expected and that is how it turned out in the end although it was the proverbial game of two halves. Aylesbury United knew they were going to have to battle hard and work together as a team but had a plan to conteract Haddenham's pace and youthful exuberance. It was one way traffic in the first half with Haddenham continuously attacking but Aylesbury's defensive line of Justine Riley, Sarah Gerrard, Beth Cameron and Anne Whytewood stood firm with Anne-Marie McArdle disrupting play just in front. Just before the half time break Haddenham managed to get one ball through the Aylesbury defense for their striker to run onto and knock the ball past the keeper.

Haddenham managed another goal early in the second half to make it 2-0 but the rest of the half was very different. Aylesbury dominated play for large periods and managed to push forward much more to make chances and put the Haddenham defence under pressure. With Kayleigh Mott on the right and Justine Riley now moved onto the left wing they took the game to Haddenham and created more pressure. This pressure got the deserved result in the 62nd minute when Kayleigh picked the ball up on the right and played it across to Amber Chalmers who shot past the keeper from the edge of the box. The game was now on and Aylesbury continued to push forward to make further chances although Haddenham also had a few chances to increase their lead. With only twenty minutes or so to go the ball broke to Sara Madden-Connor who shot with her left foot but her effort went wide.

The game finished 2-1 to Haddenham but it was a fabulous team performance by Aylesbury who battled hard, frustrated the opposition and showed great team spirit to play football the right way. They should all be proud of their performance and effort.

P.S. The best moment of the day was when the young Haddenham defender asked Beanie how long she had been playing football. When Beanie said 25 years the young defender said "Oh, well done for keeping going". Brilliant!!