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02/10/97
Gripping Cup Final Fitting Finale To Season
by Jeremy Ruane
The Auckland women’s soccer season concluded on October 2 with the Northern Premier Women’s Knockout Shield Final at Mt. Smart #2, and how fitting that a great season for the province as a whole was marked by the two best sides in the country turning on a classic.
The holders, Lynn-Avon United, Northern Region champions, and the newly-crowned SWANZ Knockout Cup winners, Three Kings United, went head-to-head in what was, to all intents and purposes, a no-holds-barred shoot-out to decide which of the two teams could claim to be the number one for 1997.
Lynn-Avon had edged out Three Kings by a solitary point in the title race, but the tables were turned in the national competition, when the 1996 winners’ reign was ended by their successors in the quarter-finals.
Throw in a classic contrast in footballing styles - Lynn-Avon’s more direct approach as opposed to Three Kings’ penchant for the passing game - and voila! The perfect recipe for cup final football.
The gathered throngs were not disappointed. But there had to be a loser, and Three Kings were more than pleased to consign Lynn-Avon to the ranks of runners-up in the cup for the first time since 1994, by downing their great rivals 2-1.
Three Kings were first to impose themselves on proceedings, with Lynn-Avon’s player-of-the-day, goalkeeper Yvonne Vale, pulling off a fine save to deny Pernille Andersen’s eleventh minute volley, following a Michele Cox corner. The resulting Beth Clark inswinger was headed off the line by Lisa Roper.
Lynn-Avon responded through an Angela Vujnovich burst down the right, followed by a cross for Lyn Pedruco. But Rachel Howard was quickly off her line to save at the feet of the seemingly ageless midfielder.
Cox and Karin Jensen combined to put Andersen in in the nineteenth minute, only for Vale to save with her legs. Cox fired the rebound, from thirty yards, narrowly past the upright, and Lynn-Avon breathed again.
Eight minutes later, Maia Jackman put Katrina Sharpe through, and her shot beat the advancing Howard. Unfortunately for the holders, her shot lacked direction, allowing Melita Harrison to race back and clear the danger.
Back came Three Kings, with a searing 25-yarder from Marlies Oostdam being saved superbly by Vale. Maria Wilkie was onto the rebound in an instant, and drilled her shot onto the inside of the post, the ball rebounding into the goalkeeper’s hands. Seconds later, Andersen dispossessed Jill Corner and beat two defenders before turning and firing a shot inches past the far post with Vale scrambling across her goal.
Moments before half-time, Dana Heiford whipped in a free-kick to the far post, which Pedruco raced in to meet with her head. The ball flew goalwards, only for Howard to produce a reflex save to turn the ball over the crossbar. From the resulting corner and subsequent scramble, the goalkeeper gathered the sphere right on the line, as Lynn-Avon’s claims for a goal were turned away by referee Alex Paterson.
The second half was barely forty seconds old when Jane Simpson put Andersen through Lynn-Avon’s offside trap. The Dane lifted the ball over the advancing Vale, who turned to see it bounce just past the post.
Four minutes later, Andersen turned provider. Down the left she ran, evading the challenge of Alisse Robertson, before crossing to the far post. Clark came hurtling in, but with the goal at her mercy, she powered her header against the upright, and Terry McCahill gratefully cleared the danger.
The relief was momentary, however, for Three Kings hit the front sixty seconds later. Clark gained possession on the right and headed for the byline before whipping in a cross. Andersen arrived on the scene to send her header flying into the corner of the net past the despairing dive of Vale.
Seven minutes later, Three Kings went 2-0 up. Jensen’s pass wide to Wilkie left Lynn-Avon’s defence spreadeagled, and the speedster sent a teasing cross to the far post, where Andersen was lurking unmarked. Her header hit the net, and Three Kings had control.
Only for nine minutes, however. A Sharpe corner wasn’t cleared by a Three Kings defence rattled by the presence of Pedruco in the danger zone, and Terry McCahill wasted no time in smashing home her second goal in as many Northern Region Knockout Finals. In 1996, her last-minute strike broke the hearts of the team then known as Eden, but this time, her strike proved to be of consolation value only.
For try as they might in those last nineteen minutes, Lynn-Avon couldn’t score. Sharpe had the best chance, six minutes from time, but volleyed Melissa Wileman’s cross straight into Howard’s hands. McCahill then volleyed over the top, while Clark cleared off the line from Jackman in the holder’s frantic final surge.
Moments later, the final whistle sounded, bringing to an end Lynn-Avon’s by and large unchallenged reign as the top club team in women’s soccer since 1993. As the saying goes, “The King is Dead; Long Live the King”. Or should that read, in this case, “Long Live Three Kings”?
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