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03/05/98
Three Kings Too Strong For Lynn-Avon
by Jeremy Ruane
How often is it that, when the two leading teams in a given competition lock horns, the team whose desire to win on the day is greater than that of their opponents is the one which enjoys the fruits of victory come the final whistle?
It was certainly the case at Keith Hay Park on May 3, as Three Kings United and Lynn-Avon United got down to brass tacks before a 200-strong crowd who braved blustery conditions to witness a tense encounter between the country’s best club-based exponents of women’s soccer.
There was as much banter on the park as there was action, but there were just three goals in the ninety minute spectacle, all of which delighted the home team’s supporters, their champions emerging triumphant to the tune of 3-0 - Lynn-Avon’s heaviest defeat for two years.
The visitors, playing with the prevailing wind at their backs in the first spell, certainly enjoyed a territorial advantage in this period, but failed to exploit it as best they could, offering very little variation to the practice of pumping the ball forward at every opportunity in an effort to utilise the seemingly endless energy supply boasted by New Zealand’s Player of the Year in 1997, Amanda Crawford.
She, however, met her match in Maia Jackman. The player Three Kings signed from Lynn-Avon in the close-season normally plays in attack, but today found herself consigned to defensive duties to contain her replacement in Lynn-Avon’s frontline. Their frequent duels were one of many highlights in a closely fought encounter, with Jackman slightly ahead on points come full time.
The home team created the first opening in the match, on the quarter hour. Pernille Andersen and Jane Simpson combined to allow Maria Wilkie the chance to beat Jennifer Carlisle before getting in a cross. Goalkeeper Danielle Hobby arrived at the same time as Andersen, with the ball cannoning off the striker and across the face of goal.
Jill Corner forced the ball out for a corner, which Andersen delivered into the danger zone. Carlisle, who was rock-like throughout for the visitors, headed the inswinging ball off the line to clear the danger, for the moment.
For within seconds, Three Kings hit the front. Michele Cox assumed possession of the ball near the edge of the Lynn-Avon penalty area, and neatly created some space for herself before clipping in a teasing cross. Hobby and Terry McCahill, Lynn-Avon’s captain, both went for the ball, along with Andersen. The striker got the vital touch, this her eighteenth league goal of the season, in just the fourth game of a fourteen-match campaign!!
Lynn-Avon’s probing tactics were keeping Three Kings on the back foot, and the visitors enjoyed a healthy supply of corners as a result. The deliveries of both Crawford and Katrina Sharpe were a frequent source of danger, but the home team held firm, although efforts before the half-hour from Melissa Wileman and Lyn Pedruco weren’t far away from altering the scoreline.
A fine curling effort from Crawford five minutes before the interval hit the top of the stanchion of the goal defended by Rachel Howard, who, soon after, calmly gathered a Wileman shot in her arms after further Crawford creativity.
With a minute to go before half-time, Angela Vujnovich was presented with a golden opportunity to equalise by Melita Harrison. The defender lost her footing at the vital moment as she prepared to clear her lines, allowing the striker to close in on goal with just Howard to beat.
Normally Vujnovich’s finishing in such situations is faultless, but for some reason on this occasion she snatched at the chance, and her shot careered wildly wide of the target, much to the relief of Harrison in particular.
The second half saw the defending champions continuing to press for an equaliser early on through Crawford, but gradually the tide began to turn, and the passing game employed by Three Kings was soon much in evidence.
Hobby kept the home team at bay on the hour, capably dealing with a Marlies Oostdam corner while under pressure from Wilkie and Beth Clark. But three minutes later, the ‘keeper’s poor handling of another Oostdam-inspired set-piece sealed the points for Three Kings.
The recalled SWANZ international unleashed a free-kick from deep inside her own half across the field towards the opposite corner of the pitch. Simpson chased after it, with Sharpe covering her run.
As the ball dropped, Hobby came out to gather it, then hesitated, opting instead to leave the situation for her retreating team-mate to deal with. Sharpe wasn’t prepared for this sudden change of plan, which allowed Simpson to steal in between the pair and gleefully fire home into an empty net - 2-0
Sharpe quickly sought to make amends for her part in the affair, but fired straight at Michelle Hodge, Three Kings’ other SWANZ goalkeeper, after some fine work by Crawford to engineer the opening.
Cox was inches away from making it 3-0 in the 67th minute, her header from a pinpoint Clark free-kick creeping just past the post, with Wilkie and Monique Van de Elzen opting to watch the ball as it crept across the face of goal, instead of racing in to make certain.
You wouldn’t have known that this was only the second game Van de Elzen had played in since retiring prematurely at the end of 1991, such was her impact as a second half substitute. Her teasing 68th minute cross was headed wide by Andersen, while her silky skills, in tandem with Wilkie’s quick thinking, carved open Lynn-Avon’s left flank sixty seconds later. Cox’s curling effort, on receipt of the former SWANZ international’s cross, crept narrowly past Hobby’s left-hand upright.
Five minutes later, only the goalkeeper’s fingertips denied Cox, as the SWANZ playmaker unleashed a twenty-five yard drive which had ‘Top Corner’ written all over it. Seconds after, Jackman was narrowly astray with a cross-shot, as Three Kings sought a clinching third goal.
It came in the 79th minute, direct from a corner. Clark whipped the ball in, and the curl she put on it, coupled with the prevailing wind, saw the ball nestling in the back of the net, much to the consternation of Lynn-Avon’s players and supporters.
Andersen went close before the finish for the victors, while Crawford’s attempts to provide some respectability to the scoreline at the death foundered on the combined efforts of Oostdam and Harrison.
This, however, was Three Kings’ day, but how significant this result will prove in the final outcome of the 1998 Bluebird Northern Premier Women’s League championship remains to be seen.
Three Kings: Howard (Hodge, 46); Jackman, Harrison, Oostdam; Simpson, M. Cox, T. Cox, Brookland (Van de Elzen, 46); Wilkie, Andersen, Clark
Lynn-Avon: Hobby; Carlisle; McCahill, Robertson (booked, 67); Corner, Pedruco, Wileman, Heiford, Sharpe; Vujnovich, Crawford
Referee: Ian Hiscox
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