Barnsley -H

Saturday, January 03 2009

Barnsley U14’s 0 – Sheffield United U14’s 1

United leave it late to take all three points away at Barnsley

Team: Abbie Mason, Amy Beanland, Beth Leaver, Frankie Softley, Kim Brown, Lauren Santoro, Rosie Beck, Cara Hopkinson, Lizzie Baxendale, Sophie West, Livvie Foxton, Tullia Kiernan, Demi West,

United travel to Barnsley for today’s league encounter, this was always going to be a tricky game for United, having not played a competitive game for almost four weeks along with the Christmas break in between.

At last seasons fixture United dominated the game but were unable to break a resolute Barnsley defence down. So today’s game will be interesting if nothing else.

The weather was clear but very cold Barnsley had chosen to play the game on the stadium pitch which looked very big from where we were standing on the terracing. United’s normally strong squad was again short of three players as, Gemma, Heather and Naomi were all missing.

The game kicked off and United started brightly enough but the big pitch, bumpy surface and lack of match fitness all seemed to be having an effect as the half progressed. Much of the play was on the left but United could just not create any real opportunities.

There was not a great deal of action to talk of in the first half, United had the better of the play but did not really threaten Barnsley’s goal, the final ball from United was either under hit, or the final pass just did not have enough pace to cause any real problems.

Barnsley had a short period of pressure towards the end of the half but did not really threaten United, with Lauren untroubled.

Half Time Barnsley 0 – 0 United

The game kicked off for the second half and it was pretty much the same as in the first half.

There were few real goal scoring chances as the half progressed, United were trying to pass the ball but could not get any real penetration in their moves, United did try and up the tempo in the last third of the match and a resulting scramble in the Barnsley penalty area saw the Barnsley keeper make a save diving to her left and in the resulting scramble she was injured and the game was stopped for several minutes.

The game restarted with no more than 7 - 8 minutes remaining, most of this was injury time due to the Barnsley goalkeeper needing treatment. United were pressing more and more and were really trying to up the tempo and win the game. With Barnsley tiring the ball broke for Tullia. Tullia managed to get a shot in across the keeper which looked to have hit the post and come back out but it had obviously crossed the line to the United supporter’s relief.

The whistle blew a few minutes later for full time.

Full Time Barnsley 0 – 1 United

Not the greatest of United performances, but a well earned victory nevertheless, on such a big pitch with the weather so cold.

United remain eight points clear at the top of the division although Rangers have one game in hand. Sheffield Wednesday also managed to fulfil a fixture this week and the postponed December game against them has been rearranged for Saturday March 7, four weeks after our last league game against Rangers on Saturday February 7

Man of the match Tullia Kieran

Tullia drove the team forward from the kick off leading by example; scoring the all important goal and tracking back to help out the defence and midfield on numerous occasions.