Abingdon v Sonning 2
Saturday 20th February
1 - 3

It was cold frosty morning and another early start. However, we warmed up with Tequila, the song that is, not the drink! We weren’t even sure that the game would be on as we travelled up to this rearranged game, which originally should have been played during the week of the ‘great snow’! Once we arrived at the pitch, Vicky and Helen C were sent off on a mission to inspect the pitch. Most of the pitch was clear, however there were a few patches with heavy frost still on them, most notably the goalmouth, so Helen C did some of her Saturday Night Fever and Dancing on Ice moves and determined that although the pitch was a little slippery, she was sure it would be playable in an hours time. How right she was as following a few more pitch inspections in the next hour by umpires, captains, captains, umpires and then captains again, it was agreed that the surface was playable and safe. Both teams seemed very happy with the decision to play and wearing our changed yellow strip, we started the first half a little slowly, taking a bit too long to move the ball around. However, we then started to make more progress into the Abingdon half and won a succession of short corners. The first Sonning goal came from a straight strike from Renee, which deflected off of the keeper’s pads onto Mei’s stick and with great composure she put the ball into the back of the net. 1 - 0, just the start we had wanted. As can be our way, we allowed Abingdon back into the game when we relaxed a little too much at only 1 - 0 up. A clear break through our defence left a 3-on-1 situation and they calmly played the ball around Rose to equalise: 1 - 1. However, we reacted immediately and our second goal came from some hard work down the right line from Helen Dacre, who passed the ball into Renee who in turn deflected the ball to the top of the D to Claire McEwen, who did a brilliant push into the bottom left had corner of the goal., making the score 2 - 1 at half time.
After half time we had some wonderful passing between the midfield of Claire McEwen, Emma, Briony and Claire Moore. This left the opposition spinning in circles and created even more short corner opportunities. A straight strike again from Renee deflected off an opposition stick and into the goal. Not a goal we openly celebrated, but very happy to take it all the same! 3 - 1 and not much time left.
No more goals came about and this left Rose trying to work out which bits of her and her kit were frozen or not - the angle of the sun you see . . . . only on one side of a static GK means the other side freezes :) !!

Overall, a promising performance and we were delighted to have left Abingdon with another 3 points!

Team: Rose Scales; Mei Jones; Anna Ringrow; Helen Dacre; Vicki Clark; Claire Moore; Claire McEwen; Briony Phillips; Emma Dalton; Laura Mulcahy; Helen Carrick; Renee Bourke.

Muff: We don’t always vote on this category, but a green card for Mei ensured she secured not only the Muff award but also a fine for our very dented and bashed fines tin!

Player of the Match: Emma and Vicki received 1 vote each; Helen C and Helen D received 2 votes each; The joint winners were Claire McEwen and Anna Ringrow with 3 votes each.