Saturday January 12th 2008

CAMBS Div 1 - CUP

Market Deeping Ladies 1st XI (5) vs Cambridge City Ladies 4th XI (2)

What amounted to a Deeping A team comfortably despatched Cambridge City 4th with a fine performance, despite the mixing and matching of first and second teamers. Although Deeping took advantage of an inexperienced Cambridge keeper some of their finishing was outstanding. Deeping scored first through acting skipper Fay Logan who took an excellent cross and evaded two defenders before slapping home into the corner of the net. This seemed to stir Cambridge and the rest of the half was pretty even with Cambridge eventually equalising.
Sarah Smith showed both sides of her game with a pacey solo run and push past the keeper, then by doggedly winning a persistent battle in the D as the umpire played a long advantage before she pushed home from close range. Nicky Buckby picked up a loose ball from a free hit to score, and Janet Eagle-Smith took a deflected cross in her stride and smashed it into the corner of the net. Well-drilled Cambridge did briefly make it 4-2 but overall Deeping’s individual ball skills, powerful hitting and pace were simply too much for the young Cambridge defenders.

Friendly

Spalding XI (3) vs Market Deeping XI (8)

What could have been an interesting friendly between high flying Spalding 3rds of Div 6 and lower half Deeping 3rds of Div 5 turned into one of those good tempered old-fashioned mix and match club fixtures that used to be common around Christmas, as both sides struggled for players. An over-strength Deeping squad (albeit made up with several players in their second game of the day) was thwarted through the first half by the unusual but effective goalkeeping style of the Spalding stopper and some poor finishing.
Spalding went into the break two decent goals ahead, but Deeping put their strongest squad on for the second half and after Alex Gale picked up a loose ball and skilfully placed it into the corner of the net to get Deeping going, the result never looked in question.
Graham Barnes then passed the ball into the net from an acute angle for the second and the floodgates opened towards the end as Deeping grabbed four in the last ten minutes. Goals from Jason Purllant (2) Tom Allam, Simon Taylor, Ben Walden and Steve Windsor made sure that Spalding didn’t benefit from some decent attacks of their own that yielded a third goal and a fourth effort that was strangely disallowed.