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23/08/98
United Sign Off With A Twenty-Two Gun Salute
by Jeremy Ruane
Three Kings United’s all-conquering Premier Women’s team finished off their home programme for 1998 in record-shattering fashion on August 23, bidding a fitting farewell to Keith Hay Park by demolishing Regional Three team Papatoetoe 22-0.
With their remaining knockout games to be played at neutral venues, mostly under lights, this Auckland Women’s Knockout Shield third round fixture offered club members their last chance to see the Bluebird Northern Premier Women’s League champions on home soil this season, and those that made the effort were witness to a twenty-two gun salute.
The result made a further revision of the club’s record books necessary, with one statistic, the club’s record score (not to mention that of the competition itself), being eclipsed, and another, most goals scored by an individual in a match, equalled at the conclusion of this eighty minute stroll in the park.
It took United a mere two minutes to open their account for the day, Renee Brookland slipping the ball through for Pernille Andersen to drill the first of her eight goals past Jillian Fromont.
Fromont pulled off a fine fifth minute tip-over-the-top save to deny Beth Clark’s header, Andersen’ corner having been flicked goalwards by Michele Cox, who was the catalyst for the second goal, in the eleventh minute. Intercepting a poor goal-kick, she slipped the ball through for Andersen, who squared it into Maria Wilkie’s path - 2-0.
The third goal, struck sixty seconds later, was a gem, Clark burying it from close range after a brilliant run down the right by Maia Jackman, back to full fitness and relishing the chance to run at an opposing defence for the first time in an injury-hit two months.
Cox and Wilkie both shot straight at Fromont soon after, before Clark showed them how to beat the ‘keeper in the nineteenth minute, stabbing the ball home following a scramble to clear a Cox cross to the far post.
After more Jackman work down the flank, the ball was cleared to Cox, the captain promptly running straight through the heart of ’Toe’s bewildered defence before slotting the ball nonchalantly beyond Fromont in the 23rd minute.
After Clark had drilled a twenty yard drive at Fromont on the half-hour, she made amends barely a minute later, firing home her hat-trick strike after Andersen had miscued her volley following a Cox corner.
Two minutes later, United went seven-up through Andersen, who was picked out by a superb crossfield ball from Jane Simpson. The referee was perfectly placed to ascertain whether the striker was in an offside position when the ball was played, and despite his “assistant's protestations, allowed play to continue, with Andersen rounding Fromont en route to her second goal of the game.
A minute before the interval, Jackman crowned a fine first half with a cracking finish to a cultured move. Tarah Cox slipped the ball through for Wilkie, who curled a cross to the far post for Andersen. She laid the ball back towards Jackman, who was fifteen yards out on the angle, from where she curled home a peach of a goal via the underside of the crossbar.
8-0 became 9-0 after four minutes of the second spell, with Michelle Hodge having come out of goal in a straight swap with Jackman at the interval. Andersen was the markswoman on this occasion, however, sweeping the ball home after beating three players on receipt of a pass from Melita Harrison.
Sloppy play by the supplier of that goal created a chance for Papatoetoe straight from the kick-off, with Jackman smothering Kathleen Scott’s shot, much to the dismay of the ‘Toe faithful, who spent the remainder of the match watching their side being completely outclassed.
Andersen fired United into double-figure country for the ninth time this season with a shot on the turn in the 47th minute, after Fromont had dropped a Simpson cross. This was not well received by her team-mates, as she stole the ball off Hodge, who was moving in for the kill.
Two minutes later, Tarah Cox and Brookland paved the way for Andersen to head home United’s eleventh goal, albeit with some assistance from Fromont, who fumbled the ball over the line.
Straight from the kick-off, Andersen pounced on a stray pass and sent Simpson galloping away down the right. She cut in and hammered the ball goalwards, her shot hitting Fromont flush in the face. Clark, following up, poked the ball home to curtail the resulting scramble.
The scorer of the twelfth goal rattled the post with a screamer in the 52nd minute, before netting her fifth of the game seconds later, although it’s hard to believe she intended her acutely angled cross to swerve in over the head of the bemused goalkeeper.
Fromont tipped a Hodge drive over the crossbar in the 54th minute, the corner which resulted culminating in another scoreline alteration, Wilkie heading home Clark’s inswinging delivery.
Simpson crossed the ball to Andersen two minutes later, and the striker, eager to make amends for robbing Hodge of an earlier chance to score, unselfishly slipped the ball to her new striking partner. “Get back in goal!” was the cry, as Hodge slipped her shot wide of the gaping target.
On the hour, Tarah Cox and Brookland combined again, the latter crossing for Andersen. Her header hit the post, but Simpson, following up, smashed the ball home from close range.
A minute later, Hodge finally scored the goal she cherished. Harrison surged out of defence before threading a pass through for Andersen. The striker cheekily played a one-two off a defender prior to slipping the ball across for Hodge, who tapped in the team’s sixteenth goal of the game.
Brookland was away on the left within a minute, and pinged over a cross for Andersen, who showed some superb close-control in juggling her way between three defenders, only to push the ball beyond the far post with the goalkeeper beaten all ends up.
Michele Cox gathered the resulting goal-kick and swept through before planting a shot unerringly into the corner of the net in the 63rd minute, while Andersen, with a shot on the turn sixty seconds later, left Fromont to pick the ball out of the net for an eighteenth time.
Simpson blazed wide from the edge of the penalty area two minutes later, with Andersen, the recipient of the poor goal-kick which followed, promptly drawing United level with the club’s record scoreline, set just six weeks previously.
It was perhaps fitting that the team’s longest-serving player should score the goal which shattered the record in the 69th minute. And “Captain Fantastic” herself, Michele Cox, completed her hat-trick in some style in the process, dancing past two players before sending a thumping drive into the corner of Fromont’s net to complete Three Kings’ score of scores.
United weren’t finished yet, however, with the competition’s previous highest score being surpassed in the 72nd minute, their captain slamming home the only penalty of the day after Hodge had been upended by a clumsy tackle from Trudi Thomasson, a defender who, by this stage, was finding this annihilation hard to stomach, a fact emphasised by her efforts to find out Michele Cox’s shirt size shortly afterwards, which didn’t exactly appeal to the United captain’s sense of humour!
Before then, however, Andersen rounded off the scoring in the 73rd minute. On receipt of a Simpson cross, she beat two players before burying the ball in the back of the net to equal, for the second time this season, the club record for most goals scored by an individual in a match, this strike being her eighth of the game.
A couple more chances fell United’s way before the final whistle - Hodge headed an Andersen cross straight at Fromont, while Andersen crashed a shot against the post - but 22-0 it remained, the Auckland Premier Women’s Knockout Shield holders beginning their bid to win the trophy again in stunning, record-shattering fashion.
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