Harrogate Railway Ladies faced a tough match today away at Leeds City Vixens in the county cup, and railway certainly rose to the challenge.
In the first 4 minutes Leeds had 4 shots on goal and it was down to Charllote Donnelly pulling off some great saves that kept Leeds out, not that Railway were defending badly it was that Leeds were so much quicker to any loose balls. It wasn’t all going Leeds way as the Railway Ladies battled hard in midd field winning some crunching tackles and feeding the ball out both left and right. Player of the match Issy Rowe was in great form, when she played out to Jodi Hodgson who in turn put a pass out wide to Dee Swales, Dee went on a run turned inside and scored a great goal in to the far right corner, 0-1. Leeds instantly applied more pressure and only 2 minutes later had a shot cleared off the line by right back April Kennedy, Railway continued to press forward and was unlucky not to score but at the same time soaked up all that Leeds could throw at them. The first half was certainly end to end stuff but half time came and Railway found themselves 0-1 up and looking good.
The second half started and Leeds came out fighting, pinning Railway in there own half for the first 15 minutes, and the pressure finally paid off for Leeds when a goal mouth scramble got the ball over the line, 1-1. This equaliser fired Railway back into life and immediately applied there own pressure on the Leeds defence, however some decisions from the referee were not going Railways way and on the 75th minute the lightest of touches was put on the Leeds forward, she went down in the box and the reff gave a penalty! This was duly converted to make it 2-1.Railway lost there way after this for a short time and Leeds were quick to capitalise breaking down the left and firing in the 3rd goal 3 minutes later,3-1. You couldn’t see away back for Railway at this point but that didn’t stop them trying, pushing up, defending hard and still battling in the middle and working hard as a complete unit, it was a cruel 4th goal with 2 minutes to go that finally saw them off, final score 4-1.
The Railway Ladies had certainly put on there best performance so far this season against a team 2 leagues above them, if they take that desire and effort in to next weeks league cup match against Bradford Park a win should certainly be on the cards.
