The day was Saturday, the push-back was 10am, the location was Derby Hockey Club’s home pitch – Leicester Westleigh ladies 2s arrived for the 9:30 meet time with 10 players, warmed up, and had just one thought – let’s get out there and have fun.
The captain’s team talk consisted of one main through-line: total communication and strong passing – let the ball work harder than the player and conserve your energy. Derby’s 11 took to the pitch, and the whistle went – we were off! Immediately, Westleigh got into their half, and stayed there – and after 15 long, frustrating minutes of the ball outright refusing to travel over the goal line, hitting the post, the goalkeeper, or travelling over the backline, we got the first goal – scored by Zoe Carey-Harris and assisted by the eventual Player of the Match, Miss Alethea Hoult.
Unfortunately, whilst Westleigh celebrated their first step up, Derby caught them on the break and tucked one into the back left corner, bringing the score to 1-1 at half-time. Whilst Westleigh had the upper hand, we just needed that little extra boost – which came from captain Leanna and the lovely Zoe again, bringing the score to 2-1. After that, the goals flowed – an amazing run from Westleigh defence all the way to the goal from Miss Hoult, a first senior ladies goal from Mollie Cope, another goal from Alethea with an assist from Kerry Crump, and the final goal coming from a penalty corner straight strike, curtesy of Miss Cope yet again – leaving us with a 6-1 win. It was an amazing performance from our recently graduated Westleigh juniors - the left and right defenders, Sofia Burdett and Lily Cook, became new powerhouses on the pitch and stepped up to help the midfield with amazing movement into space and stopping Derby from making those long runs down to our defence with strong tackling, channelling, and then distributing the ball up towards the wingers. A big shoutout to Kathryn Wadsworth for controlling a lot of the attacking shots and facilitating lots of play for our scorers in the middle, and the same goes for Kerry Crump, keeping the play out of the left side and forcing it through the middle into the 2 central defenders, Jane Sale and captain Leanna. Everyone was completely flattened by the final whistle, but it was absolutely worth it to gain the L2s first league win of the 25/26 season!