Women's Super League - end of season one

As I type this Manchester United have just trounced Arsenal 8-2 but I've just returned from something even more significant - the last match of the season in the first FA Women's Super League (WSL). I attended the mid-table clash between Lincoln Ladies and Bristol Academy.

Bristol Academy 

The result was a 3-1 win for Lincoln with two goals from new signing Jodie Taylor either side of the half, a third from Lucy Staniforth and an OG for Bristol from Imps' captain  Casey Stoney.  For some ace photographs from the match go to Mark Hodsman's blog on : http://networkedblogs.com/mfNPJ

Jodie Taylor scored twice for Lincoln Ladies

It means the table now looks like this:

Team                    PL.   Pts
Arsenal                14    32
Birmingham          14    29
Everton                13    22
Lincoln                 14    21
Bristol A              14    16
Chelsea                 13   15
Doncaster B         14     9
Liverpool             14     7

So on a humiliating day for the men's Arsenal team, the women's team once more take home the silverware. Some will say little has changed. Before the WSL Arsenal Ladies frequently beat all comers in both league and cup matches. However, the FAs redistribution of quality players at the beginning of the season meant that Arsenal weren't automatic winners this time. Birmingham City were top for quite a while and gave them a good run for their money. Indeed Lincoln Ladies beat Arsenal recently and have shown remarkable tenacity in the post-World Cup half of the season. That's not to take anything away from Arsenal's achievement. They are a force to be reckoned with. Long live the Gunners!

Arsenal Ladies win the first WSL

I'm not sure what the overall consensus will be on whether the super league experiment - if I can call it that - has worked. I'm sure websites like She Kicks and Women's Soccer United will have all the facts and figures  but from what I've read and seen having the women's season in the warmer months must have helped and the injection of cash from the FA has definitely generated more media attention. Crowds have improved but nothing like enough. There were 381 at the game today compared to over 700 at the opening match and it was free in. Pre-match publicity asked for 'donations' at the end but adult prices are usually only £6.00 anyway compared with the £25.00 I pay to watch Huddersfield in League 1. So the game is hardly a money spinner yet. Facilities have a way to go, too, at least at Ashby Avenue. It has only one grotty loo and I witnessed a mum having to change her baby's nappy on the grass outside. Not ideal. 

Still, unlike the men's game it isn't all about the money and the fancy hospitality suites. It's about upping the profile of the women's game. It's about showing that women can play and can play well (for evidence of that watch the Women's World Cup Final from July - terrific). It's about encouraging young girls to see football as something they can join and enjoy. I love it when I see, as I did today, 8 year olds with female footballers' names on the back of their shirts.  More of that please.

Helena Pielichaty

http://www.helena-pielichaty.com/

Bedding in - Huddersfield Town v Colchester United

Game 4 in League 1 and Huddersfield are bedding in. After the excitement of the play-offs against Peterborough in May and with an unbeaten run of 28 matches Town are a much-fancied side for promotion. However, the unbeaten run includes a lot of draws and three of those have been this season. Fans have started to get agitated and manager Lee Clark called for support, not boos, at the game against Colchester.

We began sprightly enough with a well worked goal in the 3rd minute from striker Jordan Rhodes after a sharp cross from Jack Hunt who had outspaced his marker. 'Hey up,' I thought, 'this is going to be easy.' You'd think after watching Town play for almost 30 years I'd have known better than to let such an idea pass through my head. Less than two minutes later Colchester equalised with Town defender Peter Clarke being bettered by Odejayi.  Still, Rhodes had another chance not long afterwards that produced a brilliant save. Town were looking good. But after the bright start it all went a bit flat.  Our defence was continually breached with Naysmith in particular seeming slow on the right wing. Colchester scored a second (Antonio on 27) and I'm afraid Town players were booed off by some fans as the half ended.

The second half was different again. Danny Ward, who signed a permanent contract during summer, came on for Gary Roberts. Ward's a quality player, pacy and with great ball control. He changed the game. For the next twenty minutes Town had their best spell and played how they should have been playing all season. Rhodes equalised on 59 and Novak put us 3-2 up five minutes later. The last twenty minutes was spent defending the lead.

The win puts Town on 6 points and 11th in the league. 

 Jordan Rhodes

Meanwhile the top of the table looks like this:
                 pts
MK Dons 10
Charlton   10
Sheff U     10
Brentford   9
Preston      7

At the other end Leyton Orient have yet to grab a point and newly promotoed Chesterfield are also having a slow start.

Still, it's early days. Give us a few more weeks, a bit of bad weather and the inevitable injuries and we'll start to see which teams look like being contenders. I hope Town are in there.


Helena Pielichaty

http://www.helena-pielichaty.com/

Wake-Up Call For Sven's Men - Dan Tunstall

Over this summer, you'd be forgiven for thinking that my club, Leicester City, has undergone a name change. We're not just Leicester City any more. We're Big Spending Leicester City.

After a fairly quiet start to their reign, our new owners, the Thai-based King Power Group, have started flexing their financial muscle. Suddenly, we're throwing money around like it's going out of fashion. At the last count, we'd brought in eleven new players since May. A lot of these were for undisclosed fees, but the word on the street is that we have spent upwards of £10 million.

Of course, everything's relative. Getting eleven players for ten million quid seems like pretty sensible business when you compare it to the sort of transfer fees the Manchester clubs and Liverpool have been paying this summer. Even the supposedly frugal Arsenal have just splashed out £12 million for an untested 17 year old. But for Leicester City, and for the Championship, £10 million is serious money.

The thing about spending big though, is that people expect immediate results. And that's the tricky part. We started the season well enough. A 1-0 win at Coventry on the opening day, despite having Darius Vassell sent off for a rash two-footed challenge ten minutes in, and a comfortable 4-1 Carling Cup victory at Rotherham. But on Saturday, Reading came to town.

I don't know what it is about Reading, but we never seem to be able to beat them. In fact we don't seem to be able to get so much as a draw very often. For the fourth successive time, Reading ended the game with all three points.

All of a sudden, the pressure is on. Was the Reading result just a blip, a one-off, or have we got problems? Have we tried to change too much too soon? Will all the new players be able to gel together as a team, or will we end up as an expensive jumble of individuals?

These are all tricky questions, and the man in charge of putting people's minds at rest is our manager Sven Goran Eriksson. True to form, Sven's playing it cool. It's just the sort of wake-up call we needed, he thinks. We've got another home game against Bristol City on Wednesday night. The perfect opportunity to get back in the groove.

I hope he's right. Because if we don't do the business on Wednesday, our next match is away at local rivals Notts Forest - never a happy hunting ground. And if we lose there...well, people are going to start panicking.

Football. Don't you just love it?

www.dantunstall.com

The Great Bungee Cord of the Football Fan - Keith Mansfield

You can never escape your football supporting roots. From the fateful day as a kid that you start going to matches and getting behind your team, there’s this unbreakable cord that binds you together for life. Sometimes you’re bound tightly; at others you think you might have escaped, that you’re finally free to live a normal life that’s not dominated by James Alexander Gordon’s pronouncements at 5pm on a Saturday afternoon. But that unbreakable bungee binding you and your team together always pulls you back.

Unless you choose to follow one of the “big” teams then your football-supporting life is likely to have more downs than ups – there are a lot of teams and only a few can win trophies or be promoted each season. But, if supporting a less fashionable outfit what you find is that the highs can be such great moments, largely because of their rarity.

I suppose I’m saying football is an addiction and you always want one more great hit. You have no right to expect you’ll get it, but the problem is there’s always hope. There’s always a secret belief you dare not speak that this season could be the one when everything clicks and you taste success again.

The great thing is that everyone starts every season equal, even if it’s with the classic Eurovision nil point (unless your team’s recently been in receivership). However bad your previous season has been (and there’s been little for a Derby fan to shout about for some time) you can always believe the new one will bring a surprise. Success in football is a lot about building and maintaining momentum – get on a good run and who knows where it will take you.

Derby County never begin a season well and are always playing catchup. Last season, after another dreadful start I was determined not to let the team’s performances get in the way of my day-to-day life. Then we had a brilliant run late in 2010 when we were unstoppable, playing the most attractive football seen at Pride Park for a decade. The bungee cord connecting me to my team reeled me right back in and I found myself going to games home and away. The club stormed from nowhere up to 4th place and I convinced myself promotion was just around the corner. How did things turn out? We finished a miserable 19th in the table, just three places above the drop zone.

Thankfully I spent much of the summer working in North America, still largely a football-free zone (especially when it comes to news of the Championship as opposed to the “English Premier League” or “EPL”). I arrived home, thoroughly jetlagged, about 2pm on Saturday 6th August, just an hour before the new season kicked off. Having avoided it all summer, I turned on Radio 5Live and Derby were the main commentary game.

It’s impossible to sleep on planes so by the time I reached home I’d been awake for almost forty hours. I crawled to my bed with the radio blaring out close to my ear. Fighting and failing to stay awake, the last thing I heard was us going a goal behind. I drifted off to sleep certain in the knowledge of another season of disappointment that I should do my best not to bother about.

The beeps of various texts woke me up. The Rams were victorious. Beating Birmingham City, a team in the Premier League last season, was no mean feat. I felt that elastic band yanking me and my team close together. Roll on Tuesday and the chance to get a second victory under our belts quickly in the Carling Cup at home against lower league Shrewsbury. What could go wrong? My excitement was mounting…

At half-time the score was Derby County 0 Shrewsbury Town 3. I blamed myself – I shouldn’t have gotten my hopes up. Saturday’s result was clearly a fluke. If only I could I should cut this giant bungee cord and walk away. But then we come back. Not enough to achieve a glorious morale-boosting victory, but a final score of 2-3 shows at least there’s hope.

This Saturday, away at Watford we win again. It’s backs to the wall stuff built on dogged defence but the boys are playing as a team – playing for each other. It’s only two wins but when you’re a Rams fan that equals the best league start since 1973 when Nigel Clough was already sitting in the dugout but his dad was in charge. We were third in the The League Table and only below Brighton in third by that narrowest of possible margins – alphabetical order. I’m well and truly back in the fold, the bungee wrapped tightly around me, binding me and my team close.

Win on Wednesday at Blackpool and we could be in an automatic promotion place. Hope springs eternal.

Visit the Keith Mansfield or Johnny Mackintosh (my football-playing hero's books) websites.