First I want to say WHAT a journey our wonderful stars have been on, Lauren and I are so proud of each and every one of our players. Their learning journey has been vast in such a short period of time and some of that magic was clearly on show today!

As for today, it took a very aggressive division 5 team (often over the top in terms of fouls, physicality and language), a very biased referee and out of nowhere 6 minutes of added time (ironically just enough for the home team to score). ?‍♂️ Enough said!

Actually, the day belonged to Stanningley! The resilience shown in the face of adversity was outstanding! When I first arrived here in these circumstances this team would have crumbled and would have been very upset. Not now, your warriors showed composure and reliance above their years. ❤️ Well done! They were all class today!

Thank you to Lauren and all of our wonderful sponsors, which meant our players received a new kit and goodie bag. ?
Thank you also to Kezia for joining our team and providing stretching, warm ups and conditioning exercises ?. OK, players now raring to go!

Straight from kick off Stanningley seemed most eager to the ball. It took just 3 minutes to register our first goal, with a fast run from Megan, breaking through centrally to score past the diving goalkeeper ⚽️. Jets 0 - 1 Stanningley.

This seemed to spur on the Jets and they were rewarded on 6 mins, with a goal of heir own ⚽️. Jets 1 - 1 Stanningley.
They doubled up on 14 minutes against the run of play, but some physicality in the build up was carefully and tactically ignored by the referee ⚽️. Jet 2 - 1 Stanningley.

Stanningley now staring to grow further in the game to try and force an equaliser, which did arrive on 22 minutes through some tenacious work in the penalty area by Lily Murphy, who squeezed the ball past the keeper to level the match ⚽️. Jets 2 - 2 Stanningley.

The game turned in to an end to end tug of war, with both teams working the goalkeepers, who were both having a great game.

This continued through to half time, with Stanningley recording 16 fouls, only to be awarded 2.

The talk at half time, was about urgency and getting to the ball first and fastest, disrupting play and were able do the things we have been doing in training.

It took 10 minutes in the second half (45th minute) for Stanningley to break through, a super lightning fast break from Millie, who was fouled in the penalty area, but kept upright to score a beauty to the right of the goalkeeper ⚽️. Jets 2 - 3 Stanningley. Queue the team shouts of come on we can do this!

5 minutes later in the 50th minute an almost identical copy of the last, a lightning fast break from Millie who again was assaulted (sorry fouled) as she was lining up the shot, agains somehow she managed to stay upright and slot the ball home to increase the lead! ⚽️ Jets 2 - 4 Stanningley.

Almost immediately from the kick off Jets scored ⚽️ making the score Jets 3 - 4 Stanningley. Jess made a great save, but the ball seemed to bobble backward and then towards the goal and over the line. Was it remotely controlled??? ?

I spoke to the referee on 60minute asking him to warn Jets to take the aggression out of the game as it seemed to be increasing by the second and bubbled over on a few occasions. He did and this seemed to calm them down for a little while.

On 65 minutes a free kick from a long way out on the left was screamed into the far corner of the goal and over everyone’s head by Jets ⚽️. The equaliser Jets 4 - 4 Stanningley

In the 70th minute I asked the referee how much time was remaining, he replied 50 seconds. So we rallied the girls thinking the game was almost up.

7 minutes later Jets scored what would be the winning goal ⚽️, ironically with the full time whistle blown immediately after. Jets 5 - 4 Stanningley. Everyone was bewildered and couldn’t believe the referees lack of being able to tell the time. ⏱️

Final score Jets 5 - 4 Stanningley, after the final whistle sounded, Jets girls refused to shake hands and were mostly verbally aggressive towards our team. This behaviour has no place in football a was a truly very poor show of sportsmanship.

Our girls had their heads held high and rightly so, we pushed them all the way and they are divisions higher.

This is a big moment, that I am counting as a major win for our girls, our best game together and still with a few tweaks to improve further.

Lauren, Kezia and I are so proud of each and every member of our team, we’ll get ready to go again versus Queensbury next week.

We’re looking forward to seeing you all at training on Wednesday, 6pm at Leeds West Academy.

⭐️ #class-not-trash!