Written By: Ceri ‘Cezza’ Dawe

This Saturday we left bright, sunny Bristol and headed up to Brockworth to play Lansdown. The penultimate game of the season was to kick off at 12pm and BAC were geared up for a win having drawn 1-1 in the previous fixture. We welcomed back Lor, Tapper and Hammy, knowing that the experience they brought would work to our advantage against a very young team. After our usual warm up drills, we received our pre-match pep talk from Lisa and Tinny.

Play began and it was clear that the teams were very well matched. With confident play from all, our attack and defence were put to the test with some excellent play from the girls in midfield in driving the ball up the pitch.

On the side line, Tinny was quite alarmed to hear, in a case of mistaken identity, the Lansdown coach remark ‘I’m surprised that Jaspers have won so many games’. Charming!

The 1st half continued, with Hammy receiving a green card from the umpire – we can only assume that he wasn’t impressed by her assertive tackling technique.

Just before the whistle went for half time, Lansdown won a short corner and scored.

Our half time talk from Captain and Vice, reminded us that we needed to keep our heads up. We were strong, experienced and skilled and although we had a battle on our hands, we were still very much in this game.

The second half began, and soon after several attacks from BAC, Sally crossed a great ball in to Tapper from the left, who dinked it beautifully past the goalie. 1-1 and spirits were high. Hammy was yellow carded for another assertive tackle and BAC were temporarily down to 10 players. Fortunately no goals were conceded whilst Hammy was off and BAC were still fighting hard.

Lansdown reacted to this and ramped it up a gear. with a few substitutions made, their fresh legs were a huge benefit. They managed to get 2 more goals past us, despite our strong and tenacious defending. It was at this point that Ceri wondered what she’d done to upset our Cheryl when she had to duck to miss a speedy ball aimed straight at her head!

As play continued, our left side was strong, and with a great ball in from Liz, Sally managed to dupe the goalie with her super slow-mo goal which looked like something off of The Matrix.

Ceri had to use her lightning reactions to duck for another ‘straight for the head’ ball, this time from the Lansdown defence. Play ended shortly after another Lansdown goal, with the final score being 2-4.

We were left disappointed, but confident that we had all played our absolute best, and looking forward to going out strong for our last match of the season.

Teas were sausage baps and chips (I’m sure we’ve had them somewhere else), and a lovely chocolate cake to celebrate Lor and Tappers Birthdays. Much merriment was had, and our man of the match Cheryl was thrilled with her Wales gloves. Whilst admiring her well deserved prize, Lisa intelligently commented ‘ooh, they fit like a glove’. well done our Lis!

MOTM Cheryl

Birthday Cake Time