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13/08/98
“Captain Fantastic” Steers United To The Title
by Jeremy Ruane
University produced a highly commendable showing against Three Kings United at Bill McKinlay Park on August 13, but the league leaders were not to be denied their long-awaited Bluebird Northern Premier Women’s League championship triumph, claiming the title with a 3-1 victory.
The result also took the newly-crowned champions into the history books, as they became the first team in the twenty-six year history of Premier Women’s League soccer in the northern region to score on hundred goals in the competition in successive seasons.
Leading the goal charge in both 1997 and 1998 has been Pernille Andersen, so it was ironic that she should fail to find the target on this night of all nights. Thankfully, United are not a one-woman army in front of goal, with Beth Clark and Maria Wilkie both having struck double-figure tallies in the league this season.
Joining them after this match in that regard is Michele Cox. One of six survivors from the 1991 championship-winning side on the field at the conclusion of this silverware-clinching encounter, it’s fair to say “Coxy” has been the most influential member of the side throughout this decade.
Many of those years have been barren, in terms of trophies, a result of the club not having a striker of the potency of Wendy Sharpe (Eden ‘87) or Andersen to turn Michele’s creative promptings into goals. Consequently, there have been times when the frustrations arising from this and other issues have tempted the nation’s 1996 Players’ Player of the Year to seriously consider hanging up her boots.
Obviously, she has withstood the temptation to do so - it was touch and go in 1995, mind! - and her perseverance is now paying off, as she begins to receive the recognition and rewards which this true champion of New Zealand women’s soccer so richly deserves.
As if to underline the fact that nothing and no-one was going to stop her from claiming a championship winners’ medal in 1998, United’s “Captain Fantastic” turned in a stunning individual performance to steer United to the title, leading from the front with an exhibition of precision passing, powerhouse running and clinical finishing.
As early as the fifth minute, she was homing in on University’s goal, her header of an Andersen corner being cleared off the line by Margot Bowker. Three minutes later, Andersen was picked out by a glorious forty-yard through ball from Cox, which allowed the striker to surge clear of University’s defence without having to break stride. Jeanene Kennedy proved equal to this effort, broken finger, dodgy knee et al.
Tarah Cox provided Andersen’s next opportunity, the striker volleying narrowly wide in the fourteenth minute. Then it was Tarah’s turn to have a header cleared off the line, Zoe Plummer intervening after the midfielder had met a corner from her sister in the 25th minute.
The ball went out for another corner, which Michele again delivered right into the danger zone. Renee Brookland flicked it on, and Clark - another ’91 survivor, along with Tarah, Helen Exler, Jane Simpson and Karin Jensen - nodded home her thirteenth goal of the season.
Kennedy foiled Andersen again in the 29th minute, before a second Three Kings goal, seven minutes later, meant the 'double ton' was a reality. Jensen was clumsily brought down on the edge of University’s penalty area near the byline, and Andersen whipped in the resulting free-kick.
Janet Groves headed it seemingly to safety, only for “Coxy”, who was lurking in the shadows way beyond the far post, to unleash a perfectly-struck volley into the roof of the net - 2-0, and a fitting finish with which to set the new milestone.
Two minutes later, the captain was at it again, this time chancing her arm with a thirty-yarder which dipped late as it sped towards the target. Kennedy was rock-solid, however, much like her team-mates, who were denying their opponents time and space in which to operate, while conceding territorial dominance.
Jensen slipped Andersen through a minute before the interval, only for Kennedy to make a courageous double-save at the striker’s feet. A minute later, Michelle Hodge was forced into action, Bowker’s drive being saved by the ‘keeper after Zoe Albon and the impressive Vicki Rainbow had engineered an opening.
This proved to be a sight-setting effort from Bowker, as four minutes after the resumption, she pounced on a wayward Simpson back-pass to bring University back into the match, sweeping her shot past the advancing Hodge.
With University playing like women possessed, in an effort to pressurise Three Kings into making further defensive mistakes, the game was very much in the balance. But they hadn’t reckoned on the relentless of the league leaders’ captain, who, when she wasn’t bringing team-mates into play with her vision and passing, was scything past opponents with gay abandon as she drove her side onto the title.
A vicious twenty-yard shot from Cox cleared the crossbar by inches in the 56th minute, while the midfielder was denied by Kennedy two minutes later, after careering past two opponents on the edge of the area.
When Cox is in this sort of mood, there is only one way to stop her, and Groves was enticed into felling United’s captain in the 64th minute. Unfortunately for the defender, she curtailed Cox’s latest crusade - an arcing thirty yard surge - deep inside the penalty area, and referee Alex Paterson had no hesitation in pointing to the spot. The title-clinching goal was duly struck, “Coxy” its chief celebrant.
Soon after, Kennedy brilliantly saved at the feet of Clark, after Stacey O’Hara and Andersen had played a one-two to open up University’s left flank. But in the 73rd minute, the goalkeeper was relieved to see the ball flashing past her upright, a result of a Brookland drive following a slick one-two between Andersen and Michele Cox.
A minute later, Andersen cut in from the left past three players before back-heeling the ball brilliantly into the path of her overlapping captain. Only a timely challenge from Lily Somerfield denied Cox what would have been her first hat-trick of the season.
After Clark had fired narrowly after beating two players and Kennedy, the goalkeeper foiled Andersen yet again, this time in the eightieth minute. Five minutes later, Cox and Brookland worked a fine one-two which saw the former pick out Clark with another fine pass. The striker’s cross whizzed a foot across the face of goal, with Andersen just failing to reach it at the far post.
There was a late scare for University, with Claudia Hicks volleying a Brookland cross narrowly past her own goalpost, Kennedy a helpless spectator. Soon after, the final whistle sounded, the 3-1 outcome signalling a changing of the guard at the top of the Bluebird Northern Premier Women’s League.
Take a bow, Three Kings United, the champions, led, of course, by their peerless empress, “Captain Fantastic”, Michele Cox.
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