This Sunday saw us host our annual Charter Standard Adult Female Festival, the 5th consecutive year with plenty of sunshine.
We were oversubscribed for the first time ever and ran with capacity of 8 teams. As the tournament is 11 a side, we had two pools of 4 and then semi finals and finals.
This year we had new entries from Peterborough Northern Star (PNS), Northampton Town and Burton Park Wanderers (BPW), a newly formed team with some great players, already making their mark in pre season competitions. In addition, Moulton, Thrapston Town and AFC Rushden and Diamonds (AFC R&D)supported once again, and the holders, Rothwell Town Ladies bought two teams along.
In Pool A were Moulton, Rothwell Reserves, BPW and AFC R&D. Moulton got off to a good start beating BPW 1-0 whilst the other two teams played out a 1-1 draw. Moulton then capitalised on their early start and went 2-0 up against Rothwell while BPW found their form putting 5 past R&D with no reply. Diamonds are rebuilding having lost a few players and bought some new players in. Moulton, already through to the semi final then beat Diamonds 3-0 winning 3 games from 3 whilst BPW continued their winning run with a 2-0 victory over Rothwell.
In Pool B were PNS, Northampton Town, Thrapston and current holder, Rothwell Town Ladies first team. Thrapston had a tough first draw v PNS and battled hard but lost with 10 players 3-0. Northampton, a young but strong side, held Rothwell to a goalless draw and then did the same with PNS, proving to be a difficult team to beat. Rothwell then picked up their first win, 2-1, against Thrapston who, were by then up to 11 players. Northampton then beat Thrapston 3-0, meaning Thrapston unfortunately lost all three games. However, the team and management had a great day and stayed to watch other teams, which was very sporting. PNS beat Rothwell 2-0 which would have seen PNS and Northampton progress, but Northampton had to withdraw due to a number of injuries so Rothwell progress to the semi finals.
So the semi final line up was PNS V BPW and Moulton v Rothwell. PNS v BPW was a tasty looking tie, as BPW had been improving match by match. The team is made up of some players from a U18 side from a couple of seasons ago, a few ex Centre of Excellence players and the captain Jo Brandon led by example throughout the day, fighting for every last ball. PNS bought a mixture of first team and reserve players and showed why they complete a couple of leagues above the County League. Both teams battled hard in a competitive semi final but BPW just edged out winners with a single goal.
In the other semi final, it was the old rivalry of Moulton V Rothwell – the two teams play a similar style of football and shared wins between them last season, ultimately with Rothwell winning the league. This time it was Moulton’s day, scoring two fantastic goals half way through the game and finishing with a 3-0 win to guarantee their final spot. Moulton’s performance of the day came in this match.
So the final was a repeat of the first match, Moulton Vs BPW. After 4 lots of 30 minute matches, Moulton looked to be tiring, whereas BPW’s earlier slow start seemed to be playing to their advantage. BPW took an early lead and made it 2-0 within 5 minutes. Both goals were superb, and Rachel in the Moulton goal could have done very little to save either shot. This gave Moulton a mountain to climb, then a penalty to BPW made it 3-0 and a final goal meant BPW won 4-0 and claimed the title.
Last year, Rothwell took the title and were told the tradition was to then get promoted from the County league! And this is what they did. The last 4 winners have gone on to win the league and if Burton continue to play in this style, promotion could well be on the cards by the end of the season. Good luck to all teams for the coming season.
Thank you to the 4 referees who helped to ensure everything ran to time, to Alan Aisbett and Tracy Pepper for helping, and to all the team managers, players and supporters for continuing to support the event.
SHE KICKS – the online community for women’s football
