On this particular Saturday, there were two such conversations. Giulia Clini had returned from international duty (well, a trip to Holland) with a knock. And not only would Ruby Rudkin be unavailable against South Park, but the goalkeeper intended to hang up her gloves altogether, although she was willing to play the other games before Christmas.
And so, it’s reconstruction time again for Teddington Athletic, in the short and long term. Looking ahead, a new goalkeeper will be needed: Jen Neves has filled in superbly, but it’s not what she signed up for, so players and parents alike are once more requested to ask around. One possibility has been unearthed and might attend this Friday’s training session; she might need some polishing, but that’s what the coaches have been doing for years.
The latest recruit to receive a buff and a shine is Annabel Taiwo. Having played as a striker before a couple of seasons out of the game, she came along to a few training sessions and has found herself preferring to play in defence. Nothing new in that: among the legendary players to have started further forward before excelling in defence are John Terry, Rio Ferdinand, Ledley King, Sol Campbell, Ashley Cole, Amy Hallett, Anna Kauffmann, Ella Dodd, Carla Novakovic, Frances Clark and Emily Bashford. More importantly, Annabel seems to have rediscovered her love for the game, which is the point.
Good job too, because Teddington only had 11 players to choose from – for the third time in six fixtures, the rest of which each featured the relative luxury of one substitute. So Annabel was in, with the team switching to a back three, partly to help the new girl bed in, partly to help create attacking overloads. Surrounded by the expertise of Amy Hallett and Millie Theobald – a defender to her very core – Annabel was also protected by Carla Novakovic and Liz Kriebel.
Patrolling the flanks were Frances Clark and Emily Bashford; bringing their pace and energy to bear up and down the wings, they would also allow Emily Coulson and Ella Bothamley to play more narrowly than usual, joining Ella Dodd in a triumvirate of forwards who last year plundered 36 goals between them.
Typically, it was Doddsy who made the first attempt to break the ice on the season’s coldest morning so far, with a range-finder from distance. As expected, South Park had set out to defend doggedly, deep and in numbers, so Teddington would have to be clever to find their way through.
It took eight minutes. By her high standards, Emily Coulson hasn’t been hitting the target with the usual regularity – just two goals in the last 13 games, one of them in the cup final, the other in last month’s Abbey game while playing more centrally in the absence of Giulia. Here, with Teddington switching to a 3-4-3, she (and Boz) had been told to operate within the width of the penalty box and leave the wider pastures to the wingbacks. And that’s exactly what happened: Fran overlapped and found Doddsy, who sent her old mate Em inside her to tiptoe past a couple of opponents and calmly finish under the goalkeeper.
Shortly after, Emily could and perhaps should have doubled her money. Arriving in what felt like slow motion, a deep Boz cross provided her with almost too much time and she tried to take the case off the ball, instead slicing it away in such a fashion that South Park could break and worry Jen Neves with a cross which bounced around the area for a decidedly suboptimal time.
A minute later, South Park had an even better chance. Playing it through a Teddington backline that was still at the “nervous cocktail party” stage of communication, they were happy to discover their No.11 was far faster than her foes – but Jen was rapidly off her line to stop the on-target shot.
If far from blunt in attack, South Park were starting to get picked apart at the other end as the home side asked the harder questions. Fifteen minutes in, Fran scored her first for her new team, deserved reward for intelligent play. As a Teddington right-wing exploration broke down through sheer weight of defenders, Fran stopped getting sucked toward the ball and pulled out wide to find space; recycling through Carla, the home team found their flame-haired winger in bags of room to rev her engines. Cutting inside on the diagonal, she hit an early right-footer into the same corner previously rustled by Emily.
Five minutes later, Fran was again involved in a switch of play, again it caused a goal, again it was scored by a wingback… but not her. Cutting inside on her right side – she still doesn’t know which is her stronger foot, and that’s no bad thing – Fran curled a clever ball through the defenders for Boz to run on to. The goalkeeper got there fractionally earlier but the pressure of Boz’s presence worried her into a hurried half-clearance which landed so invitingly at the feet of the overlapping Bash that before she had time to think about it she’d put it in the back of the net.
To their utmost credit, South Park never even looked like giving up. From a Teddington corner, they battled to win possession, the tenacious little midfielder out-tackling Carla before looking to set up a counter-attack. As she glanced around, though, she found her way blocked by Annabel, strong in the tackle to repossess and recycle.
On 27 minutes, Teddington’s tenacity made it 4-0. Languid of stride but determined of mind, Boz chased a defender down to the flag and whipped in a cross which Fran made it her business to meet in the six-yard box, bustling past defender and goalkeeper to tuck home left-footed.
It took South Park less than a minute to shave the deficit, outmuscling Teddington’s midfield and playing it through their backline for the No.11 to streak on to and finish past Jen (apologetic, as ever, even when faultless).
The rest of the first half featured various pleasing cameos. Being filmed for her GCSEs, Liz was keen to get in on the goal act, and couldn’t have got much closer than the 25-yarder that pinged off the crossbar, down and out. Bash carefully lofted a lovely ball over the top for Doddsy, and although the centre-forward couldn’t quite catch it, she displayed plenty of lovely touches: surrounded by passing options in what frequently resembled a 3-2-5 formation, she produced some lovely cushioned through-balls for team-mates with gorgeous weighting, showing her technical ability and positional awareness.
Further back, Annabel was growing into the game, enjoying the physical side of it and showing an increasing positional awareness. She was alongside a great tutor in Millie, who was oozing confidence: two or three times she found herself facing a pacier opponent but dug back, positioned herself between ball and girl, put her foot on the ball and turned casually out to pass away from danger. It’s good to see such an accomplished, ball-playing defender, always looking to find a team-mate.
Such a promising first half and solid lead should have provided a platform for a thoroughly enjoyable second period, but it didn’t happen. Nothing had changed at half-time, bar Bash switching with Jen and Annabel borrowing Jen’s boots for a firmer grip; squeezing into the loaned footwear took longer than expected and she only reappeared on the pitch a couple of minutes into the second half, but some of her team-mates were only present in body rather than mind.
For the first 15 minutes after the restart, South Park had a handful of opportunities to start the sort of comeback which would have been sadly familiar to anyone who saw Teddington temporarily lose a three-goal lead against Crystal Palace last December. Bash did well to get a hand to a right-wing cross bu could only deflect it to a striker; thankfully, Amy had superbly slipped behind her goalkeeper to cover on the line and clear with her usual consummate coolness.
In her typical mindset of willing rather than confident, Bash was a little busier than she would have liked: in one particularly troublesome minute she was called upon three times, twice tackling striker with her feet – unorthodox but effective – before racing out of her box to clear a through-ball.
Just when it looked like South Park were the more likely next scorers, Teddington made it 5-1 in the 56th minute. For the second time in two minutes, Fran took it upon herself to carve out a chance: bursting out from the left-back berth to steam past a couple of players, she seemed set to switch the play to Boz but instead threaded a lovely alley-ball for Doddsy, who won’t fondly recall what can only be described as a fluffed early shot.
Then Fran was on her bike again, picking up Carla’s goal kick to motor past some South Parkers, cut inside from the flank and slip in another lovely ball – this time setting up a sprint race between Emily at inside-left and a rapidly approaching goalkeeper. Em won that battle, skipped round the keeper and tucked home left-footed - the second Teddingtonian of the game to score with either peg.
By this stage and scoreline, meaningful glances were being exchanged between the Ellas Dodd and Bothamley, two good friends who bring a lot more than just goals but who nevertheless feel a little less happy if they’re not on the sheet. From a Liz free-kick just before the hour, Boz lashed a superb volley which the keeper did well to parry wide; a moment later, Doddsy drove toward goal up the inside-right channel, turned beautifully inside to send the defender for doughnuts but the opted curiously to turn back outside, perhaps searching for her favoured right foot. Displaying somewhat less indecision, Boz took control and swished it just wide of the far post.
Whether she was doing her best to lift the subdued second-half performance or simply taking care of business, full credit to captain Carla, who was so omnipresent in the second half that South Park must have thought they were facing a team of indefatigable replicants. But even she was powerless to prevent the visitors getting a goal back in the 66th minute, the striker being first to a right-wing cross and finishing at the near post.
Pleasingly, the more South Park pressed, the more Annabel rebuffed them. The No.11 could beat her for pace but the new girl had been told that the first rule of defending is never to give up, to always make life hard for the opponent. Gritting her teeth and stretching her legs, she caught up with the forward, nicked a foot in, got the ball, turned away and cleared it. That’s defending for you.
With 10 minutes left the home side extingiuished any away hope – and fittingly it was Fran again at the heart of it, skipping down the left, hitting the byline and pulling it back for Boz, hovering by the penalty spot, her left-foot first-timer cutting summer’s remaining daisies en route to the far corner.
Perhaps deservedly, South Park had the last word, scoring again in the 76th minute to draw the second half 2-2. Nice goal, too, passed around in midfield and sliced through the defence for a confident finish.
So this wasn’t Teddington’s finest hour, although they haven’t scored more goals than this since January 2016. After another annoying weekend off, tougher games await – trips to third-placed Maidenhead and champions Wimbledon, followed by two pre-Christmas crunch matches against Hamption & Richmond and Fleet Town. They’ll need to tighten up at the back, whomever the personnel, and they’ll need to hope that any Saturday-night managerial conversation topics are restricted to Match of the Day.
TEDDINGTON ATHLETIC Jen Neves; Amy Hallett, Annabel Taiwo, Millie Theobald; Emily Bashford (1), Liz Kriebel, Carla Novakovic, Frances Clark (2); Ella Bothamley (1), Ella Dodd, Emily Coulson (2).
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