Sussex County Women’s League - Div 1
Crawley Down 2- Haywards Heath Town 2nds 1 (Carly Vaughan) - 27th Jan 2008
After a long break from football due to bad weather it was good to hear that our opponents had had similar misfortune.
Heath started positively with good movement and passing. Defence of Dawn Gaston. Bex Smallman, Jo Fairbairn (Managers Player of the Match) and Alison Field along with Celia Huggett worked excellently together to keep Crawleys strikers at bay. Huggett made a number of excellent saves to keep Heath level, and distributed the ball well for our midfielders to work with. Lone striker Carly Vaughan worked well with wingers Nat Trend and Jo Stevenson making good use of the balls from captain Gemma Paull, supported by Mel Conniff and Jo d’Ambra. Unfortunately just before the break Crawley managed to beat the offside trap and slot the ball past Huggett.
The second half saw Heath determined to equalise and continue to put pressure on Crawleys defence from a number of angles. Vaughan was brought down just outside the box resulting in a free kick which she calmly bent round the wall and thankfully reflected off of the player on the post. From this Heath had to absorb a lot of pressure from Crawleys sub [who is an England U17 international ] which resulted in not much attack on the Crawley defence. Unfortunately Gaston had to be subbed with a suspected broken toe, with Sarah Bridge replacing her up front, with Bridge putting in maximum effort in supporting the midfield.
In the last minute Crawley gained a free kick, and d’Ambra was lucky not receive a yellow card due to disobeying the referee twice, and instead running full pelt towards the ball before the player had taken the free kick. Thankfully due to the good nature of the game (and a pleading word from manager Sarah Miller) the referee decided against it and offered to lend her his rule book !!.
Team: Celia Huggett, Dawn Gaston (Sarah Bridge), Bex Smallman, Jo Fairbairn, Alison Field, Gemma Paull (captain), Mel Conniff, Jo d’Ambra, Nat Trend, Jo Stevenson, Carly Vaughan
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