Harrogate Railway ladies faced their first real challenge today away to Keighley (recently relegated from the next league up) and found them selves under performing in a big way.
On a small pitch and strong winds Railway struggled to play the football they can, but on the 5th minute a cross in from Ally Purvis caused panic in the Keighley box, a small clearance was shot back in which the Keighley keeper saved but only to knock it on to the back of a defender and the ball went in, own goal,0-1.
Keighley had a game tactic which was to slow the game down and get under the skin of the Railway players, this they managed throughout the game. However hard Railway tried to break through the back line it didn’t work and Keighley broke out to put pressure on railway. Dee Swales managed to get some shots at goal but was unable to beat the keeper.
On the 25th minute Keighley broke out on the right and a great shot went in to the far corner to make it level, 1-1.
The Railway ladies found them selves really struggling at this point and Keighley made the most 10 minutes later scoring the second to go 2-1 up.
At half time the Railway ladies were given a strong pep talk encouraging them to sort the midfield and to get their passing game going!
The Railway ladies took note and started the better team putting good pressure on the Keighley back line, but still couldn’t find enough passes to break through. It was end to end football for most of the second half and rails keeper pulled off some great saves.
With 20minutes to go it all got a bit feisty and the referee was struggling to keep control, Railway again lost there way and after 74 minutes Keighley scored a well struck goal 3-1.
Railway looked like a team that had run out of ideas and 4 minutes later Keighley scored the 4th goal. A very difficult game for Railway made harder by themselves but hopefully they will look at this result agree it was a bad performance as a team and come back stronger next week, player of the match was full back Jenny Hudleston.
Next week Railway Ladies are at home against Brighouse Sporting 1-30 KO
