Saturday 1st February 2025 - Kick Off 10.30am
The first home game of the New Year arrived with a match against a team we had not played before. With a few more players back from injury the team looked both strong on the pitch as well as the bench. The match started with Amelia Troughton in goal and a back four of Poppy Johnson, Lilly Perry, Izzy Stobbs and Freya Welbourne. Jenny Crossley and Grace Denny made up central midfield with Izzy Colbert and Bella Richardson on the wings. Upfront was the strike partnership of Camilla Rishton-Hepworth and Maja Kulis. On the bench was Cecily Gambrill, Olivia Harvey and Abbie Rushworth.
The game started in clear weather conditions, albeit the pitch was a bit on the heavy side. The opening 15 minutes was played out mainly in midfield with a good battle to win control of the ball by both teams. Knaresborough settled into their rhythm and started to utilise Camilla’s pace to turn the defence on a number of occasions. This resulted in the opening goal when Jenny won possession and quickly played a through ball between their two centre backs to Camilla. 25 yards out Camilla drove into the box and with her weaker left foot slotted home from just inside the box into the bottom left corner, 1-0.
Having gained the early advantage, the girls settled into their usual passing play using the width more and more to try to get in round the back of a strong Marsden defence. With Abbie now on the field and Lilly pushing back up into her more favoured midfield position, the team was holding the opposition at bay. Further pressure resulted in a number of corners, the final one resulting in an own goal from a lovely delivery into the box by Lilly. 2-0 to the good but by no means comfortable as Marsden continued to cause the back four issues with their pace and a clean sheet was on retained due to some great last-ditch tackles by all the defenders and some great saves from Amelia.
Towards the end of the half a freekick was awarded about 30 yards out after a late tackle on Jenny. This was an almost identical position on the pitch from where Lilly scored last week in the win over Greetland. Their goalkeeper didn’t ask for a wall and this ultimately assisted Lilly in scoring a beautifully struck freekick into the top left hand corner of the goal. 3-0 at half time was a very good return on the game but very much deserved.
A change in goalkeeper saw Olivia come on for the second half, along with Cecily making a further introduction into the game. Complacency was the most likely thing that would cause the girls issues in the second half. Having weathered some strong attacks from Marsden the game remained unchanged after about 15 minutes, however, the girls energy levels along with dropping a little deeper at times was starting to give the opposition encouragement and a foot hold in the game.
Within 15 minutes Marsden had scored two goals leaving the whole feel of the match completely different. During this period Olivia was unfortunately injured in a coming together with one of their attackers meaning Amelia reverted back to goalkeeper. A few changes were made to try to tighten things up along with some more energy, saw Camilla return upfront after coming off early in the half due to a slight injury and Cecily moving to the left wing.
Midfield and wingers remained in a constant battle for possession with the flow of the game yo-yoing either way. The back four of Freya, Abbie, Izzy S and Bella were made to work really hard in this last period but ultimately, they helped prevented any further goal being conceded.
Thoughts from the Captain, Lilly Perry, on the game:
“The girls worked hard on Saturday and brought back another 3 points. In the first half it was full of good work rate and battling, but slightly slipped off in the second half, which was proven by the goals conceded. However, the girls still managed to work hard for each other and secure the win”.
Goal scorers: Camilla Rishton-Hepworth, OG, Lilly Perry
Match Report: Michael Richardson
