In the freezing cold English winter weather, the Hockey match between the Birmingham Women’s 1st team and the Nottingham Women’s 1st team took a while to get into the action.
In a game totally dominated by the Birmingham team, in all areas including possession, territory and shots; the Birmingham team put up 17 shots while the Nottingham players failed to shoot at goal. The first half was not as representative of this as the second, with Nottingham mounting some attacks early on, but nonetheless it got off to a quick start, with Birmingham winning a short corner early on.
Despite aggressive play throughout the first half, there was no score before half time. The second half told a totally different story, however, as Birmingham were able to put 5 goals on the board to Nottingham’s none. Just less than 10 minutes into the second half the scoring was opened by Birmingham number 21, with all the pressure paying off.
The remaining 4 goals came in a 10 minute span towards the end of the game. The second was scored by number 33, who put in a good shot to score. The next two goals, finished by numbers 14 and 20 respectively were both well-worked team goals, with a good move leading to the third and a rapid counter-attack resulting in a tap-in for number 20. The fifth goal was the icing on the cake, as the game was already won by that point. A shot from a fair distance by number 25 took a deflection off the defending player before finding the net.
Towards the end, the Nottingham players began to show some signs of life, but it was too little, too late as Birmingham had closed out the game.
The victory leaves Birmingham top of the Premier North division as the only undefeated team, with 12 points, five points clear of second place Durham. They are also yet to concede through 4 games, and have a 17+ goal difference.
