For the second home game in a row it was a storm-ridden Kingston Park that NUFC Women had to contend. Stoke City Lades were the opponents, but it was another test Wor Lasses passed with flying colours as Amanda Staveley watched on from the stands.
After beating Burnley in the cup last month and seeing of Fylde 4-0 last weekend, Sunday’s second league win of the fledgling season was comfortable enough after a slight scare in the second half. At times, United looked a cut above established Northern Premier League side Stoke City. They could have and perhaps should have been out of sight long before they eventually were.
The game started cautiously with neither side dominating but after a first 15 minutes where no-one was really on top it was Newcastle that started to press and push the visitors back. The mercurial Georgia Gibson beginning to create openings and Amber-Keegan Stobbs pushing on in midfield.
When the opening goal for The Lady Mags came on 20 minutes it really settled them down and they began to play some measured smart passing football that had City very much on the back foot thereafter.
It was Gibson that opened the scoring on 20 minutes and what a beautiful goal it was. Kacie Elson picked up a loose ball just outside the box and played a lovely reverse pass to Bridget Galloway on the edge of the box.
The striker showed great awareness and slipped a square pass to Gibson who took a delightful first touch that took her past her marker and then from 12-yards out she coolly stroked the ball into the left-hand corner of the net past Georgie Ferguson in the Stoke goal.
One became two on 24 minutes and it was elegant dynamic midfielder Elysia Boddy with her first goal for United. The first of many one would suspect. An Olivia Watt throw-in was taken to the byline by Gibson before she sent in a very dangerous cross.
The Stoke defender only cleared the ball to the edge of the box where Boddy burst on to the loose ball, taking a touch that got her away from the defence before she crashed a superb 14-yard effort into the bottom corner with the outside of her right boot. What a finish it was from a very good player.
From there it looked only a matter of time before The Lasses notched again. But Ferguson in the Stoke goal had other ideas and kept her side in the contest with excellent saves to deny Galloway then Gibson twice. It meant Newcastle went in at half-time two goals to the good.
By now the rain was torrential and there was thunder in the air as well as on the pitch. The second half opened in the style that the first half had ended. Ferguson once again in fine form to deny Elson a third for the home side.
Galloway even had the ball in the net following up at close range when a Gibson drive was parried by Ferguson, but the Assistant’s flag correctly raised chalked the goal off for offside much to United’s centre forward’s disappointment.
Eventually, with lighting strikes off the pitch matching Newcastle’s on it and the rain continuing to hammer down, the referee rightly called a temporary halt to proceedings and took the teams off the field suspending play. The game was delayed ten minutes and when it did resume it changed.
Whatever happened in that brief stoppage Stoke certainly looked a brighter side and United’s rhythm and flow had certainly been stifled by the stoppage. It resulted in the visitors pulling one back on the hour mark.
United’s style is to try and play the ball out from the back and build through the midfield. Sometimes, as Assistant Coach Andy Cook told me after the game they might get it wrong. This was one of those occasions.
Charlotte Potts played a ball to Hannah Greenwood who failed to control it loosing possession to Abby Hunt, who spotting United keeper Hannah Reid way off her line chipped the ball expertly into the empty net from 25 yards.
That goal stirred United who restored their possessional advantage and began to look lively again. They turned that possession into a third goal on 76 minutes and almost inevitably Galloway was in the right place at the right time to grab her fifth goal of the season in only three games.
It was a lovely move down the right started by Boddy, moved on by Watt to substitute Becky Ferguson who produced a superb pinpoint right wing cross that Galloway met on the six-yard box line with a picture book header to make it 3 – 1 to Newcastle. A perfect centre forward’s goal.
Ferguson then produced more heroics when first of all she came quickly off her line to block Elson’s 10-yard effort and then did brilliantly to recover and save Galloway’s follow-up as well.
The game did end on a slightly sour note for the home side when Greenwood was dismissed on 86 minutes after picking up two yellow cards in quick succession. It seemed as if she may have gotten away with it at first but the eagle-eyed Assistant intervened and helped the man in the middle out.
Despite going a player down United saw out the game comfortably to keep their 100% record intact as they move on to face Derby County next Sunday 17th September away from home.
