Second place secured

Bury Ladies 4s welcomed IES 3s to Culford knowing that a win would secure second place and promotion. We fielded a mixed age team, including eight juniors - with first appearances for Ivy Ford and Charlotte Garner - one twenty something, one thirty something, one forty something, one fifty something and two over 60s.

The usual game plan applied: move the ball out of the crush in the middle and let our faster players cause havoc in the space out wide. Bella Bridgeman demonstrated this early, with Kathryn Mitchell converting her run and cross. Alice Freeman added a second soon after, with Bella then converting the first corner to make it 3 on 15 minutes. IES never stopped trying, a promising debut from one of their juniors being a particular threat, but Bury were pushing them deeper into what was becoming a very crowded D. This led to more corners, with Jazz Westcott converting twice to give Bury a 5-0 half-time lead.

There was a reminder to move the ball more quickly wide where we always threatened to pull the defence around given the middle of the pitch was a crowd scene. We got better at this which pleased the coach. Ivy Ford scored on her debut, driving into the D before powering a shot home. Alice added her second before another debut goal, this time for Imogen Grove. With fresher younger legs Bury were finding more and more space and added three more goals in the final ten minutes, Bella grabbing her second before Jazz completed her hat trick and then added her fourth for our 100th league goal of the season.

Much credit goes to IES, particularly their keeper who had an outstanding game, for never giving up. We were a handful on the day and never stopped running.

Congratulations to Castaways for winning the league. They were the better team over our two meetings with them. We look forward to having two rematches next year in what should be a much more challenging season for both attack and defence.

Final thanks of the season go to: all those who umpired for us (apologies if we scowled at you sometimes...); all those who came along to support us whatever the weather (your support was much appreciated); the over 30 players who played at least one game for us (you were all stars!); Ella Brisbane for being an amazing captain (despite getting married at the start of the season and abandoning us for a honeymoon in Vietnam at the end of the season!); and Keith Yeates, our (sometimes frustrated) coach and primary match report writer.