West Lancs Girls League Tournament at Wigan
Under 8s & Under 10s Squads
West Lancashire Girls’ League Under 9s Tournament
DW Soccerdome, Wigan - Saturday 23rd January 2010
The next tournament outing for qualifying players from the Under 10s squad and those players wishing to get involved from the Under 8s squad took place on the above date.
We had a bumper turnout this time as we had 18 girls involved from Bury Girls & Ladies FC—entering 3 teams in this Under 9s 5-a-side friendly tournament. 6 of the girls were from our Under 8s section and they formed a team on their own (Bury Girls 'Reds').
All the girls were once again a real credit to their club, being well behaved, sporting and very enthusiastic. From the Under 10 girls, we mixed the two teams in respect of experience, age and ability and they each went in a different group—there were two leagues overall in the Under 9s age group comprising 10 teams overall.
All the matches were played on a ‘round-robin’ basis, so there were no semi-finals, finals, playoffs etc, as the tournament was done on a ‘non-competitive’ basis.
The outcome for each of our teams was as follows: -
Team members-Courteney, Amy, Kiera, Jodie, Sophie, Sasha, Eloise
Wigan 1-1 Bury (Scorer: Kiera)
Euxton 2-1 Bury (Scorer: Eloise)
In a great start against the girls from Dynamo Rangers, Bury quickly got into their stride and controlled the game, although Sasha was certainly tested in our goals on a couple of occasions. Courteney received the player of the match nomination from the referee.
The second game proved nail-biting stuff against a determined and experienced Wigan side. All the Bury girls worked really hard and deserved the hard-fought draw, following a great goal from Kiera, just before she had to leave the pitch, after suffering a cut lip in an unfortunate collision with one of the Wigan team. Sasha was nominated player of the match by the referee.
The game against Birkdale also proved a bit of a ‘see-saw’ with Bury taking the lead, only to see this being cancelled out from a strong strike and then Birkdale taking the lead in the middle of the game. Some great work from Courteney (taking over from Sasha in goal) kept the score down and perseverance paid off for Bury, with an equaliser being achieved. Sasha had to go off the pitch after hurting her leg in a heavy collision, but Bury held on to earn a well-deserved draw.
Sasha was fit enough to take part in the final game and resumed her position in nets for what turned out to be an extremely tough final test against the girls from Euxton. Once again, Bury took the lead through another excellent goal from Eloise, but this only served to spur the Euxton girls on. Despite some very brave stops from Sasha, the equaliser was conceded and then Euxton scored again with very little time left on the clock, leaving Bury little realistic chance of pulling another back.
Overall, these were an excellent set of results from the Bury ‘Whites’, given they played against 4 strong, experienced teams and certainly gave a good account of themselves. The girls rotated positions to give all a chance of joining the attack and exhibited good teamwork and awareness of the game throughout the event.
A very respectable outcome overall, leaving their manager and parents very proud!
Team members- Jessica, Jade, Molly, Casey and Nicole
Bury Blacks 1-0 Bury Reds
In Bury “Blacks” first game, they had an excellent start and quickly showed their experience against the team from Fillies Girls FC. Casey really took to the job in hand and scored an early goal to get the Bury team into their stride. She then followed it up with 5 more (Yes—FIVE more!) being extremely well-supported by her team mates, who fed her the right balls to create goal-scoring opportunities for her. Jessica also got into the action with an excellent goal—due reward for her hard work in all areas of the field. Bury were able to relax and enjoy the experience, even coping with a wholesale change in the Fillies team part way through the match, when it would appear their more-experienced players came into the action.
The second match then brought forward a Bury ‘Derby’, given our ‘Blacks’ and ‘Reds’ teams had been drawn in the same group. This was a closely fought contest and despite the ‘Blacks’ eventually winning 1-0 through an excellent goal by Molly, this was by no means a one-sided game, with our Under 8s girls matching the Under 10s ‘Blacks’ in many respects.
The third match was again an evenly fought affair against TMS girls, but unfortunately, we were unable to take some of the goal opportunities that came our way. TMS scored 2 good goals, from which we could not recover, but they certainly had to work hard for their victory.
The final game was against the experienced girls from Burnley and once again, the girls all worked really hard for each other, creating chances at one end, but then having to defend strongly at the other end to keep out the Burnley forward line. The pressure from Burnley gave them a goal early on, but an excellent strike from Molly once again drew the game level for Bury. The game continued to flow from end-to-end and there was some excellent defending from our girls. Unfortunately, an attack right near the final whistle gave Burnley the opening they needed to squeeze a late winner past our goalie.
All in all, the girls played really well together, creating chances and backing each other up against their opponents. Well done to them all, but a special mention must go to Casey for her magnificent goal haul in the first match and to Molly for her two goals in separate games.
Team members- Lara, Jo, Katie K, Katie S, Ella and Cody
Bury Blacks 1-0 Bury Reds
This was the first tournament the Under 8s girls have been in as a group. Most of the team hadn't even taken part in a match against other girls before let alone girls who were at least 1 or 2 years older. The instruction from the Manager, Diana was to simply have a good time, try hard, and enjoy the experience.
The first game was against Burnley and Bury Reds were very nervous, for the first few minutes it looked like stage fright had set in and they had forgotten everything they had learnt in training. This passed and they soon found their feet and began to play the way Diana knew they could. It was an end to end game and Bury were unlucky to concede a goal.
The second game was against our own Under 9s girls. We knew they had more experience and were a little older. But never mind we were going to give it our best shot anyway. And so we did losing only to one goal. Not bad eh!
Third game and unfortunately we lost a player to illness and had to continue with no subs. Well done to Katie S for playing to the best of her ability even though she wasn't 100%. TMS was a very good side who liked to pass the ball around. We still tried hard and did manage to score a goal against the run of play. With Lara taking a bump on the nose during the process, what a tough cookie!
It was nice to see how the girls had grown in confidence as the day had gone on and they were determined to give the last game their all. They did just that. The game was end to end and was even at 1-1 right up to the last minute. When a goal mouth scramble resulted in The Fillies popping in a last gasp goal.
An impressive display from girls aged just 7 & 8 years old. Keep going like this and by the time you are able to play competitive football in a league you will be league champions!!!
Well done to you all, you all took turns in different positions including goal keeper. Extra well done to Lara who received the 'Player of the tournament' award nominated by the pitch referee.
It was great to see an excellent turnout once again from Bury Girls & Ladies FC at this tournament. We as managers / coaches and all of the parents can be justifiably proud of them.
The girls were enthusiastic, well behaved and played in a sporting manner, working hard for their teammates.
Our thanks go to Julie Edwards and her organising team, plus referees at West Lancashire League for putting the event together and to all the parents for bringing their girls along to make it a great afternoon!
GRAEME TAGGART, MANAGER & MARK EDWARDS, COACH
Bury Girls & Ladies FC Under 10s Squad
and
Diana Golding, Under 8s Coach.
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