Sport

Women suffer cup agony for second successive year

By Matt Duncan
Published: 05/03/2010

Photo: Helen Munro

Two goals in two minutes deep in extra time condemned the women’s football first team to an agonising 6-5 semi final defeat against Teesside at Norton.

Uni were just over five minutes away from reaching the final of the Northern Conference Cup for the second successive year but cruelly had that dream snatched away from them as the clock ticked down.

Last season, the team lost in the final amid officiating controversy and at times this match looked as if it were set up to give Uni a second chance to go all the way.

In a match that was scarred by bad language and foul attitudes, Uni led four times but could not close out the game in the 90 minutes.

With seven minutes of extra time left, a speculative effort looped into the Uni goal from nearly 30 yards and a minute later a long ball from the visiting keeper found its way through the home defence and was coolly finished.

The second goal sparked delirious celebrations from the Teesside coach and subs whilst the Uni players looked distraught.

Captain Kat Adie said: “It is devastating but I am really proud of all the girls today. We deserved to win that game, I honestly think that.”

The game had started untidily with neither side coping brilliantly with the rough surface.

This led to a number of collisions and Teesside temporarily found themselves a player down after three minutes when one of their players was ordered off to receive treatment for a bloody nose.

Uni took full advantage of this and opened the scoring with a well taken finish from the edge of the area.

However, the pattern of the match was started early as Teesside swiftly equalised as their centre forward cut inside to finish off a superb solo goal.

Uni regained the advantage after good pressure by Jess Kay forced the Teesside keeper into a mistake, gifting the ball to Melissa Hallmark who fired into the unguarded net.

The teams traded goals as the half continued. First Teesside levelled the game direct from a free kick before Uni went ahead for the third time, with the partnership of Kay and Hallmark again combining well to create Hallmark’s second goal.

The sides are both in the same division in the league and this was reflected in the competitive and even nature of the match.

The early stages of the second half saw Teesside start better but it was Uni who extended their lead with 25 minutes left. Katherine Chappell hit a sweet left foot shot into the bottom corner to put Uni in a match-winning position.

However, it wasn’t to be. Teesside closed the gap with 20 minutes remaining and three minutes later they were level, another free kick beating the Uni keeper.

Uni had chances to win the game in normal time, first Hallmark shot wide under pressure and in stoppage time the Teesside keeper produced a good save to parry away a Uni free kick.

Extra time started well for Uni who scored within three minutes in controversial fashion.

A Teesside player went down with cramp but Uni played on and scored from the resulting play, resulting in words being exchanged between both sets of players.

Despite this piece of good fortune, events in extra time were to conspire against Uni and they were denied their second attempt at winning the tournament.

Throughout the match tensions were high between the teams and this was reflected in skipper Adies’ post match comments.

“We may have lost but I would rather play with these girls and lose than play with those lot every week. We showed real character and fight today. Character will stay with you for life.”

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