We spoke with Gillingham gpalkeeper, Courtney Shanly, after she saved three penalties in the Gills’ shoot-out victory over Forest Green Rovers in the SSE Women’s FA Cup 2nd Round on Sunday January 17th.
SK: Tell us a little of your footballing history
CS: So this will be my third season back at Gillingham after being at the Centre of Excellence when I was 15. I played for both Charlton and then Chelsea Centre of Excellence from under 10s to 14s. I was also at Charlton briefly with the under 17s and reserve team, whilst representing Kent for a few years before coming back to Gills.
SK: With the respective league positions, were you hopeful of being able to progress in the Cup?
CS: Of course! The FA Cup is always full of surprises and we go into every game with a positive approach. Ideally we want to be back to playing in the Premier League [Southern Division] against teams like Forest Green every week, so it was a good test to see where we’re at at the moment and where we still have to go in relation to the teams above us.
SK: Were you getting nervous about leaving it late to level at Forest Green?
CS: It’s always difficult to pick the momentum back up after you go a goal down, so the conditions made it even harder for us to look to play/counter quickly. But we had a couple of good chances and phases of play throughout, so I was optimistic that we’d manage to put one away in the end.
SK: Which side looked to have better fitness in the extra half-hour and how did you cope?
CS: The weather and pitch made it very hard work for both teams in the 90 minutes, so the extra 30 evidently took its toll on both teams. Luckily we’re a tight knit group, so the encouragement from all the girls definitely made a difference and gave the team that extra push to get us through the 120 minutes.
SK: Rovers had a goal disallowed but did you come close to winning in extra-time yourselves?
CS: I think we had a few chances but the final finish or pass just didn’t play in our favour unfortunately. Extra time was a nerve-wracking half an hour, both teams could have easily taken their chances on a couple of occasions.
SK: Was there added pressure on the penalty takers with the first three all missed?
CS: Obviously there’s always pressure when you volunteer to take a penalty but regardless if you score or not, you’ve got to have respect for the players. It takes a lot of guts to put your hand up and say you’ll take one, I know I won’t be volunteering anytime soon.
SK: What were the penalty saves like?
CS: Strangely all the shots were towards the same side and around the same area. I was a bit disappointed not to keep the fourth one out, as I managed to get my hand to it, but when you’re not expected to save any, I really can’t complain with the three out of four.
SHE KICKS – the online community for women’s football
