Match day 7 saw Bootham Ladies’ Futsal Club – York travel again to Warrington to face Sunderland University Women. Lucy H made her long awaited debut today and we welcomed back Denva to the starting lineup.

It was a funny game from the start, with Bootham struggling to get any passing going and constantly giving the ball away. Their recent improvements weren’t showing and they looked a shadow of themselves from the previous games. Sunderland scored twice in the first 10 minutes, before Bootham really got going and finally tested the Sunderland goalkeeper. Three more late goals from Sunderland left the halftime score 5-0 to the opposition.

Bootham started the second half much better, moving the ball quickly and starting to match the physicality of the opposition. They created several good chances with Suzy forcing a reaction save and Kim just failing to meet a cross from Hannah. Sunderland scored from a breakaway before Bootham final scored, Ellie converting from a flick on by Denva. Individual errors allowed Sunderland to extend their lead late on and they ran out 11-1 winners.

After the game Coach Chris said, ‘I am disappointed with the performance today, simply put we are better than that. The result doesn’t represent the improvements we have made over the previous weeks. We seemed to be off the pace today, and let Sunderland dictate the game for long periods of time, not something we have done recently. Players who are usually reliable, made too many individual errors today, and Sunderland really punished us.’

He went on to say, ‘Denva had a good second half as pivot, she really did manage to put her foot on the ball and secure possession. It’s just we didn’t allow the second phase to develop after this, something definitely to work on. Lucy had a good game and she will really be an asset to the squad going forward.’

As a final thought he said, ‘We lost 21-2 earlier in the season to the same team, so this is an improvement and I have to be pleased with that. We had 3 weeks off with Covid and Easter and I know this was a mistake, we are playing teams that train twice a week. Moving forward this has to be addressed if we are going to be competitive. In the last game of the season we face Warrington, and it really is a game we can win. We have been building towards this all season, so we have to go there and believe we can win this. For the first time this season we will have nearly a full squad to choose from, so I can’t wait to see how we perform.’