Well—this was it! We were here—at the Cup Final—in our first season of competitive girls’ football!!

Excitement had been building for some weeks, since our heady victory against our good friends from Oswaldtwistle St. Mary’s Girls FC at Towneley Park, Burnley in the cup semi-final.

On that occasion, we had overturned the odds, as we had lost both league matches this season (albeit by fairly slim margins) to “Ossie”. Bury started out as the “underdogs” then, but ultimately turned out to be ‘top dogs’ on that occasion, after an excellent, well-fought game played in a very sporting manner by both sides.

And so it was to be the same as we came to the Cup Final……………..

Our opponents were to be Kelvin and his team from Mill Hill Girls FC—an excellent squad, who have swept all before them in the league this season—conceding few goals and winning all of their matches—a great achievement!!

We ourselves played them in our first-ever league match, losing heavily on our home ground, and then travelled to Blackburn for the return match a few months later. Whilst we still lost that second match, we felt we got a lot closer to them on that occasion, ultimately losing out to some excellent goals, greater experience and stronger physical presence in key areas of the pitch.

The 9 squad members picked for Bury Girls & Ladies FC for the final were as follows: -

Sasha, Kiera, Nicole, Sophie, Eloise, Jodie, Kristeen, Amy and Courteney.

The pre-match preparations started with a ‘TV-style’ line-up, where all the girls were clapped by the large numbers of parents, grandparents and friends attending from both sides (and other clubs as well, given a number of cup final matches were taking place on the day), and the girls and managers then moved down the line, all shaking hands and smiling for the cameras!!

Sophie, Captain for the day for Bury, handed over the Bury Girls & Ladies FC pennant , whilst shaking hands with her opposite number and the referee.

Both Nicole and Kiera had been suffering from illness over the couple of days leading up to the final, but were so keen to get involved, that they shrugged this off to start the game as our key defenders, in front of Sasha in nets. Sophie and Jodie took the midfield positions, whilst Eloise and Kristeen started up front.

There was plenty of lively action from the start, but a very early setback came for Bury when we failed to close down a swift Mill Hill attack and the attacker managed to seize upon our confusion, slotting the ball past an advancing Sasha into the Bury net—1-0 to Mill Hill.

Our girls though showed great courage and determination not to fold and even managed to cope with the early exit of Kiera, who had to come off the pitch, due to a recurrence of her illness. Amy quickly slotted into the position alongside Nicole.

The rest of the first half was good end-to-end stuff, with both sides creating opportunities and going close to getting a goal. For Bury, a great goalmouth scramble resulted in Sophie having a shot clattering against the Mill Hill post and had that gone in, that would have given us a great boost.

As it was, the teams went off at half-time, with Mill Hill leading by that solitary early goal.

Undeterred, our girls kept working hard and it would have been great if all this good “honest toil” had been rewarded with an early goal in our favour.

Courteney joined the fray in this second half and was working hard against the central Mill Hill defender, who towered over her!

Nicole had to then come off with a recurrence of her own recent illness and we swapped the team around as best we could, whilst we tried to keep our shape and create some chances against the stalwart Mill Hill defence. Our girls ran themselves ‘ragged’ trying to chase down the ball and create opportunities or to close down Mill Hill.

Ultimately, it was not to be and whilst we did lose another goal in the second half, there was a particularly excellent performance from Sasha in our nets to keep out very frequent Mill Hill counter-attacks.

The match finished at 2-0 in favour of Mill Hill, but all agreed it had been an excellent, well-balanced contest, played in a sporting fashion.

Mark Edwards and I were justifiably very proud of all our girls who played in both the semi-final and final matches—you worked hard, gained great experience and were a real credit to your club and to your parents!!!

Our thanks go to Kelvin Wilkins and the Mill Hill girls for providing our opposition—we congratulate them on their excellent victory!!

Our thanks also to Lytham YMCA / Lytham Girls FC for hosting the event and to the officials of North Valley League for organising the final and our league calendar this season. Thanks also to the referee for officiating the game and to all the families and friends for attending and supporting the girls.

Roll on next season!!

FINAL SCORE: BURY GIRLS & LADIES FC 0 MILL HILL GIRLS FC 2