The under 9’s squad visited the Soccerdome at Wigan on Saturday 22nd January for The West Lancashire Girls League Funday. Bury had a squad of seven for the five a side tournament and played four games over the two hour session.
First up we played Blackpool and played very well, but as coach, I have to hold my hands up that I made a mistake. In training we have a rule that only the goalkeeper is allowed inside the penalty area, at this tournament that rule did not apply but I forgot to mention that to the girls before the tournament began. So although we dominated most of the game we were restricted to long range shots and it ended in a 0-0 stalemate.
Next up was Dynamo Rangers who played very well and we had a challenge to keep them at bay. We held our own but couldn’t quite put the ball in the goal due to some good goalkeeping. It was quite an even game and our defence coped well but Dynamo settled it with a solitary goal with just 20 seconds left. On balance of play a draw would have been the fair result but such is football!
Lammack Juniors were our third opponents. I don’t know if it took the late goal against us in the previous game to get us going, but we certainly got going in this game. Despite hurting her hand against Dynamo, Alizee fired us into an early lead and then doubled it. Sophie fired a third and Livvy made it 4-0. It wasn’t all one way traffic though and some great defending by Olivia and Amy as well as some great stops by rookie goalkeeper Katie saw us through to the end.
Wigan Athletic proved tough opponents in the final game but again our forwards were on fire. Livvy scored first and Alizee grabbed a second. Cody was winning the midfield battle with some fine tackling and the Latics couldn’t find a way through our defence. We played seven a side for this one, meaning every player got a full eight minutes on the pitch.
All in all it was a very pleasing display by the Bury Girls in which every player contributed well to the side. Six goals scored and just one conceded, it certainly bodes well for the future.
I’d like to thank all the players and their parents for travelling down and also Julie & Noel at West Lancs League for putting the tournament on and making it a friendly atmosphere.
Bury Squad: Alizee, Amy, Cody, Katie S, Livvy, Olivia & Sophie
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03/07/10
Manchester FA Under 9's Festival
This mini football event was run in partnership between the Manchester FA
and the North Manchester Girls League who will be running the league we hope
to be entering in the coming season. The event was held, luckily for us, at
Philips High School in
Whitefield which is of course our home venue but it was on the small 3G
Astroturf pitches that the action took place.
We had only five girls down for the event which was the maximum squad size
allowed but as we had a pre-arranged friendly with Oswaldtwistle on the
Sunday it wouldn't have been fair to ask the whole squad to play two days
running. Bury's squad consisted of Alizee, Jo, Katie K, Katie S and Lara.
In total there were eight teams taking part in the non-competitive games,
not that the girls didn't compete just that there were no
records of the scores being kept centrally. It was a 4v4 event with no
goalkeepers and pop up goals being used. The girls took well to the new
format with each girl seeing plenty of the ball and showed off some great
skills as well as scoring plenty of goals.
AFC Manchester Girls, Heyside Angels and Chadderton Park each provided two
teams with ourselves and Chadderton FC Juniors making up the eight teams. As
there were no scores being recorded, it wouldn't be right to put the results
down here, but suffice to say the girls played really well, taking on board
many of the things Diana had taught in training and came away with four wins
and three draws from their seven matches.
The goalscoring was shared around as well with Alizee grabbing five goals in
total, Lara netted four times, Katie K got three, Katie S scored her first
ever and an own goal made our tournament total 14. Poor Jo did just about
everything but score, next time all those which just went wide will fly in!
We conceded 5 goals in total but managed to keep a clean sheet for each of
the final four games. The girls from all the teams seemed to enjoy
themselves and hopefully this will develop into a good little league
although the exact format is still up for discussion. I'd like to thank
Michelle at North Manchester Girls League and Shirley Veevers at Manchester
FA for putting on a great morning of football, along with all the players
and parents for coming along.
