Intermediate B Division thankfully reverts back to 8 teams for 2008

Bangor Ladies
face Portaferry

BANGOR Ladies football club held their second pre-season friendly last Wednesday (27th) evening, again welcoming another of the local ladies clubs to Clandeboye Road - Portaferry Ladies, from the short distance down the Ards Peninsula.

On paper this should prove a close game, as Portaferry are a club who have been together now for a few years and are starting to benefit from buildinmg up a good squad - Bangor however, play in a division above their opponents and were hoping to be able to field a stronger side than they had in their only other competitive outing this season - against Donaghadee’s Abbey Villa Ladies, 3 weeks previously.

Bangor open their league campaign away to St. Matt's

But once again, the home side were without a number of senior players, well to be honest, three quarters of the side: Kim Dockery, Cathy Duncan, Christine Morrison, Jeni Boyd, Julie Graham, Tina Sharpe, Jackie Price and Peggy Matthews were all AWOL; coming in again were teenagers Maggie McKeown, Hannah Smyth, Danielle March; keeper Sam Britain, along with the welcome return of both Petrah Armstrong and Christina McNamara.

Portaferry kicked off on quite a cold, but thankfully dry night and the early exchanges were trademark frantic - the size of the arena not really being used to full effect - the game was therefore compact and the ball often trapped in the furrow up the middle of the pitch.

The first chance fell after some naive defending caught Bangor cold, the through pass giving the Portaferry front player a good opportunity to open the scoring, but the chance was blasted high and wide.

The Seasiders, without the fluency of having been able to field the same side on successive occasions, were coping well, with the new signings coming in, all standing their ground.

Portaferry in contrast had a full compliment, bringing a squad of some 20 down to Bangor for the fixture and with the rules relaxed, the visitors were able to rotate and freshen up their side.

The deadlock was broken after 22 minutes and although it would be unfair to blame an exposed home goalkeeper, it was a shot which 9 times of 10 times would have been easily stifled, which sneaked inot the corner of the net.

Bangor fell further behind - again rather unfortunately as after putting together a string of three reasonable saves Brittain was guilty of undoing all her hard work when she let another tame speculative effort past her to double the Portaferry total.

The Seasiders responded almost immediately, Dee Savage bursting down the right hand side, drove the ball right across the Portaferry penalty area, where Carolyn Scott was on hand at the backpost to tuck away the finish.

This inspired a short spell of sustained possession from Bangor Ladies as they had secured an important foothold in a game which was being disrupted by the pace of the visitors attack.

First women's fixture are in the IFA Cup - w/b: April 21st

Sam Brittain in goals continued to improve after her shakey start and a made an outstanding stop at the feet of a very lively Portaferry No.
11, when she broke through the offside trap, hoping to restore the visitors two goal advantage.

The equaliser, which to be honest never really looked like coming, with the Seasiders definitely looking decidedly lightweight up top, came from a classic counter attack - from a second successive Portaferry corner, with half time on the blow, the visitors over loaded the Bangor box and from a quick clearance were caught by the pace of McNamara who lead the charge out.

A ball slip through by Savage again found Scott who slipped though to Armstrong and it was another easy tap in to make it 2-2 at the break.

The second half of this one brought nothing of any note from the Seasiders - unable to sustain any significant forward momentum - Savage was often isolated up top and the Portaferry defence were returning the deep ball out of the Bangor half with alarming regularity.

The visitors restored their lead in the 19th minute of the second half - after some clever work out on the right, found the Bangor right side exposed and the visitors in
behind the defence for the decisive strike 3-2.

The game did fizzle out at a contest late on and the visitors added another to make the final score 4-2.

Another good work out for the core of the side, who were again without some key and influential players - and both return fixtures are eagerly anticipated when the Bangor side can at least go out and represents themselves with a full compliment of senior players.

Some encouraging signs though is the emergence of the clubs youngsters - McKeown and Smyth filling in the role of full backs are gaining the praises of the more experienced campaigners who can see, though these two teenagers, are still making mistakes, the improvements in the three weeks since there debut’s have been very impressive - a couple more months and the club will have two fine young players pushing for starts.

A reasonably performance on merit, although a slightly disappointing outcome, Bangor’s Armstrong benefited from the outing. While starting on the left side of midfield, Carolyn Scott was Bangor’s best performer on the night.

Bangor's League fixtures - available on Calendar Page

Last Edited on 31-Mar-2008 11:59 AM