United Ladies Start With A Win
The United ladies started life in the Premier Division with a fantastic 4-3 away win at Bristol Ladies Union on Sunday afternoon.
Life didn’t started to well though as United found themselves 1-0 down within 45 seconds of the start and they must have been wondering what lay ahead for the remaining 89 minutes.
However, the ladies never let conceding a goal get them down and they dug in deep for the next 25 minutes, on what was a very long grass playing surface which wasn’t suiting the ladies flowing passing game. The hard work paid off and on 25 minutes, a deep looping cross from Hayley Chamberlain, found Laura Gough who headed home to equalise.
United continued to pressure and won a corner on 41 minutes, the ladies had been working on corner set pieces in training in the week and the routine paid off at the first attempt, a corner swung in from Louisa Stentiford-Crook, found Vicki Fannon who bulleted a header into the roof of the net and United went in 2-1 at half time.
In a seesaw second half Bristol equalised on 57 minutes, Jess Armstrong a king pin in defence nipped in front of the Bristol attacker to carry the ball forward to release the predatory Gough to run on and put the ladies back into a 3-2 lead.
United looked to be seeing out a well-earned win when Randi Cutmore gave away a needless free kick on 85 minutes on the edge of the United box and United were punished with a great free kick to make the game 3-3.
Manager Ant Roach could have quite easily settled for a point to take home in his debut as manager, but a change of formation as soon as the equaliser went in by taking off a defender and going to a 3-4-3 and pushing on an extra striker paid dividends as Laura Gough was felled on the edge of the Bristol box and up stepped Louisa-Stentiford-Crook on 90 mins to coolly place her free kick into the bottom corner of the Bristol goal to wrap the game up 4-3 and a well-earned debut victory for United in the Premier division.
