Bradley Stoke Ladies 1st v Bristol Ladies Union 1st, 12th April 2026
Another day of mixed weather (why do I seem to always start with the weather), this time starting the match into the fairly strong wind. Once again we had a bare 11 players, so managing energy levels was as basic as… well none really. Our only hope being that if we were playing into the wind in the first half, the second half might give us back a bit of wind advantage. More about that later.
Stalemate is probably the best way to sum up the first half. Play was competitive and quick, but both teams couldn’t hold onto possession for long spells, hence the end-to-end nature of play. In fact whenever the ball headed down our end of the pitch it was almost certain to eventually end up somewhere in the car park behind, which meant another 30 second break waiting for it to be found. I am of course biased, but I think we were marginally the better team in the first half, but we just couldn’t convert our chances into goals.
The second half promised to take a bit of pressure off us with the wind at our backs, but the moment the whistle blew to restart the wind just stopped… almost completely. The sun came out and suddenly it was a gentle spring day, so all our ideas of smacking one in from the half way line disappeared in (a lack of) smoke. To be fair it did pick up a bit later, but Bradley Stoke had come back out with the intensity of a team determined to get themselves out of the relegation zone. We conceded a couple of corners 10 minutes in and Bradley Stoke got the first goal of the game. Our hopes were for a quick response, but although we spent a lot of time at the right end of the field, we just weren’t quite able to capitalise. At one point I looked over to Sarah who was waiting patiently at CF for a move the in the right direction, and she was boxed in by 4 defenders. The game continued end-to-end, but with no substitutes available we couldn’t give anyone a break, so fatigue set in. Lydia got caught in a late tackle and almost picked a fight with the most mild mannered referee in the league, even though he’d awarded us the free kick, which speaks to how tired everyone was getting. We still had hope up to the last few minutes, and then Bradley Stoke scored again! It was out of reach.
So a disappointing 2-0 loss for BLU, but we’ll put it behind us and look to the next game. Player of the Match was Jas for her seemingly unlimited energy, and the Magic Moment trophy went to Lilia for a cracking last-ditch tackle, dispossessing an attacker after every defender had been sent the wrong way. Thank you to all everyone who played and gave it everything for 90 minutes.
