But the game’s getting hard. As women’s senior football goes through another convulsion with the FA plotting a new league structure, well-meaningly designed to prioritise professionalisation over meritocracy by insisting top-flight clubs go full-time, so is reflected at grassroots level an inescapable truth: those with the most resources will out.
The Surrey County Womens & Girls League continues to outgrow its geographical boundaries, attracting some of the finest teams in the London area. Crystal Palace’s academy side have rejoined the league and their old rivals AFC Wimbledon. Watford almost joined the league – they were on the preliminary club list – and Queen’s Park Rangers have settled in style.
Ranged against these outfits are a series of clubs with good intentions but limited resource. In their previous two games, Teddington Athletic had shown promise despite a lack of players forcing them into various tactical reshapes. Against QPR, their limitations were exposed somewhat more ruthlessly than even this one-sided scoreline suggests: Rangers scored four, had two more disallowed and hit the bar twice while still seeming to have more in reserve.
Having switched by necessity to a back three against Maidenhead, Teddington reverted to the back four which started against Hampton & Richmond – Jen Neves, Amy Hallett, Millie Theobald and Emily Bashford.
Frances Clark was away on international duty – a Duke of Edinburgh trip to Wales – but Teddington did feature a first for the season: a fully-fit substitute, namely Sarah Dillamore. Persuaded to relace her boots for another season, the veteran of the older-aged team brings half a decade’s experience, defensive diligence and a keen mind. Having stepped down a year but up a division from Christelle Pontico’s team, Dillers began with a watching brief from the bench, astutely noting how much quicker the game is at this level: “I haven’t seen a single dribble yet,” she said after 20 minutes.
The lack of one-on-ones was down to QPR’s dedication to pass-and-move and Teddington’s intention, honorable but rather overanxiously expressed, to act as quickly as possible on whatever possession they could muster.
QPR’s early questions were answered by an array of defenders. Keen to try the ball over or through the backline, the visitors were denied by Amy’s excellent recovery, then by Carla Novakovic’s dedicated covering for the exposed Bash, then by Ruby Rudkin rushing out of her to clear with fearless physicality.
The Rs had the ball in the net within eight minutes from the same ploy expressed rather more simplistically: on this occasion their goalkeeper’s clearance glanced off a Teddington defender before being calmly dispatched past the line-rooted Ruby. Linesman Andy didn’t flag because it had touched the defender last, but the experienced referee correctly disallowed the goal because the attackers had been offside from the keeper’s through-ball.
On 18 minutes, QPR rattled the frame of the goal. Manoeuvring down their right wing, they burrowed in to the corner of the six-yard box and fizzed one off the underside of the bar.
With QPR having controlled the first quarter of the match, Teddington upped their game and pressed for possession. Ella Dodd typified the tenacity: helping her backline to defend a corner, then winning a header in midfield to set off a tentative Teddington attack which ended with Emily Coulson’s long-shot from distance, well-fielded by the understretched goalkeeper.
The ball was soon down the other end – and in the goal. Dinking the ball over the top from their right wing, QPR were delighted to punish the absence of both the offside flag and a covering defender, Jen admitting at half-time that she made the split-second decision to play offside. The forward duly finished and the visitors had taken a deserved lead after 24 minutes.
Jen made amends a minute later, getting back to defend really well, determinedly refusing to let the No9 on the left flank cut inside onto her favoured right foot. But within another minute QPR had doubled their lead when a cross from the right wasn’t dealt with, bouncing past two defenders and a goalkeeper to a gleeful gambling striker.
Things almost went from worse to disastrous when the bar again denied QPR, this time preventing what would have been their third goal in four minutes. Pleasingly determined defending had given away a free-kick 30 yards out; QPR’s taker had the confidence to take on the shot and the ability to rattle the goalframe, although it bounced out to safety.
Teddington were under constant pressure but commendably refused to buckle. Having spent most of the game forced to help out in the muck and bullets, Giulia Clini showed her creative side with a lovely through ball which sent Doddsy scampering into a QPR half completely deserted except for the goalkeeper, who was keen to get involved and hared out of her box to win the ball and the free-kick for Doddsy’s no-quarter-given challenge.
Five minutes before half-time QPR again had a goal disallowed for offside, this time much more contentiously. The striker had finished well low to Ruby’s left but the referee agreed with Andy’s flag, even if most of the coaches on the opposite touchline didn’t. Certainly the visiting players didn’t, complaining so vociferously that their captain was summoned for a lengthy lecture by the referee.
In the half’s final minute Teddington put together their best move yet when Jen strode out of defence to win a throw in the attacking half; sent into space down the right, the galloping Doddsy hit a superb fierce cross which the goalkeeper could only palm to Carla. The captain calmly set up Emily but her shot was saved by the recovered goalkeeper.
Glad of the half-time break, Teddington took the opportunity to shuffle their pack. Amy had again done a sterling job as a stand-in centre-back, but she shuffled out to right-back as Sarah came on for Jen, her team-mate old and new. Dillers immediately settled into the position she finds most natural, while Amy seemed to enjoy the licence to range forward.
Indeed, for the third quarter of the game Teddington generally had their best spell of the game. Having been assured that they had more space on the ball than they thought, the girls started to take their time and create things.
They also continued to battle for the ball. In one particularly impressive minute, Emily dug back into the left-back position, wouldn’t let the opponent settle, won the ball, shrugged off her foe, played it inside to Doddsy, received the return and dinked it back over the top for her centre-forward. Seeing that she couldn’t quite set the ball for Giulia, Doddsy instead returned the ball once more to Em, whose cross beat the goalkeeper but sadly also escaped the uncommonly quiet Ella Bothamley at the back post.
Giulia then muddied the goalkeeper’s knees with a low shot from 20 yards, having been supplied by Emily after good work from Bash – the left-back steaming forward and keeping the ball alive when she had no right to do so.
Occupying QPR with a high press, Teddington found their visitors suddenly somewhat nervous, struggling to clear their goal-kicks in their accustomed short-passing style. From just such a set-piece Liz collected possession, drilled into the corner of the six-yard box and fired a shot just over the angle of post and bar – she was still cursing her luck an hour later – and from the resultant dead-ball Boz instinctively chanced a first-time header from 25 yards.
However, Teddington couldn’t halve the arrears, and QPR soon extended them. Four minutes before the hour, they cut in from the left flank and found the No.2, who turned smoothly inside Bash and finished expertly into Ruby’s bottom corner.
Six minutes later, the same forward was heading for goal when Carla tripped her in the box, and the confident No.7 who had been keen to run the show for QPR despatched the spot-kick for 4-0.
There was still almost a quarter of the match to go, but at that point the Rs declared somewhat, rotating their substitutes and trying different patterns of play. The home side searched for a consolation and might have found one with five minutes to go, when Emily did well to win the ball, drive on and send a delicious curling ball in for Doddsy. Again the goalkeeper charged out, but the striker got there first and bypassed the stranded netminder. Unfortunately she was then accelerating toward the left-hand corner flag, and didn’t quite trust her left peg for a shot on the run; by the time she adjusted the ball back onto her right, the keeper had recovered enough to push the shot wide for a corner from which Liz worked a one-two with Carla but pulled her shot wide.
Although Teddington couldn’t reduce a scoreline that could in truth have been much worse, they did at least find some succour in a substitute. Quiet and absent of arrogance, Jen Neves has settled into the squad without fuss or fanfare; a midfielder by preference, she has willingly played as a wingback or attacking full-back.
But with Boz off her game, Jen came on – after borrowing a shirt from an U17 lad – to spend the last 11 minutes as a wide attacker, and showed great promise. Linking well with Doddsy throughout, she almost created a goal for Emily by robbing a defender and curling in an exquisite cross; it may not have come off – not much did, throughout this game – but Jen has given the management another option.
This is a squad of quality, if not quantity, with players who can excel in various roles. With Jen’s old mate Sarah now an option in defence, and a couple of reinforcements close to signing, Teddington will hope not to have too many more days like this.
Teddington have rallied before. Last October, they lost three successive league games, to Wimbledon, Maidenhead and Abbey Rangers; after a revivifying draw with the Dons, they then won four league games on the bounce. Old rivals Abbey are the next opponents, before a long absence-enforced gap, and Teddington will hope for a similar springboard this season. The girls certainly deserve it.
TEDDINGTON ATHLETIC Ruby Rudkin, Jen Neves, Amy Hallett, Millie Theobald, Emily Bashford, Carla Novakovic, Liz Kriebel, Ella Bothamley, Giulia Clini, Emily Coulson, Ella Dodd. Sub: Sarah Dillamore.
Thanks to Catherine for the photos (after the table).
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