University of Birmingham Women’s Hockey First Team successfully began their campaign to win the Premier North A Division for a fourth consecutive season by scoring three goals at home against newly promoted Leeds Beckett University.
UoB started the game brightly hitting the post after only seven minutes, constraining their opponents to playing in their own half, only getting half chances to counter attack against an impressive Birmingham performance.
Only moments later the UoB side capitalised on an impressive short corner routine, poking the ball home past the stricken Leeds Beckett goalkeeper to take the lead.
To compound the Leeds player’s misery, precisely one minute later the Lionesses smashed home a second goal from short range to put themselves into an unassailable position.
Despite the brilliant early displays, Beckett improved launching their own odd attacks despite Birmingham’s constant pressure and possession. Birmingham struggled to gain an elusive third goal thanks to some brilliant defending and goalkeeping work from the Leeds Beckett side.
Despite picking up a yellow card late into the first half, Beckett failed to capitalise, leaving Birmingham two nil up at half time. At the restart the Lionesses didn’t have long to wait before scoring their third goal in what was the moment of the match.
The third goal came from a fantastic piece of play starting from the goalkeeper, swiftly moving the ball up the pitch and up to the forwards, before tapping home at the far post.
The Birmingham side’s defence remained untroubled apart from the odd save from the goalkeeper throughout the rest of the fixture. Birmingham controlled the rest of the second half and nearly added a fourth when they hit the post with five minutes left to go.
The lionesses will hope to be able to repeat this week’s successes in next Wednesday’s game away from home against Nottingham Trent.
