It was the penultimate weekend in the FAWNL Southern Premier Division and there was still two things to be decided, could Ipswich Town seal the title and play Championship football next season, and could Billericay Town seal their status in the division and send Plymouth Argyle down.
This was how the table looked ahead of Sunday's fixtures:-
Now Ipswich Town were taking on bottom side Milton Keynes Dons knowing that a win would pretty much win them the title and promotion to the Championship, the second tier in Women's football, and to be honest it was hard to see anything other than a healthy win for the league leaders against a side who had lost all but one of their league games this season.
Now, if MK Dons pulled off a miracle and denied Ipswich the win, Hashtag United could capitalise if they picked up maximum points at home to Exeter City, that would be a much tougher game though as Exeter sat third and only three points behind the second placed side, so The Tags knew they must win to at least sew up that runners up spot.
I was however over at New Lodge for a big game for hosts Billericay Town who knew if they could pick up a sixth win of the campaign and Plymouth lost, they would be safe and and Plymouth Argyle would be down, anything else and they would be nervously looking over their shoulders to see how Argyle got on against AFC Wimbledon over in Devon, if The Blues failed to win and Argyle won, then Billericay would be the ones in the relegation zone heading into the final weekend of the season.
Billericay's opponents today were Oxford United, a side that do not concede many goals of late, since the turn of the year they had played eight games, losing only two and only conceding four goals in that period, pretty impressive, so Billericay would find it tough to crack that nut for sure, but the visitors had only netted eleven goals in the same period so The Blues were hoping that Oxford would struggle to find the net today as well.
However, against a side that had played in two cup finals recently and lost that by a combined score line of 0-13 (0-5 against Chatham Town in the Isthmian Cup Final and 0-8 against Hashtag United in the County Cup Final) even goal shy Oxford would have fancied a few against a Billericay side low in confidence no doubt.
Billericay knew though that with a win they could potentially be safe, so surely that in itself would galvanize them to give one last effort to save themselves, and not rely on Plymouth slipping up in their last two outings, the last thing The Blues wanted was to drop into that relegation zone with just one game remaining, that was not on the agenda at all, so the start to this game was all important as it often is.
It soon became apparent that Oxford would have a lot of the ball in the first period, and a lot of the play was spent in side the hosts half, however, Billericay dug in and made it hard for the visitors to breach their back line, the only real clear cut chance Oxford had was when a downward header destined for the far corner was superbly saved by Town keeper Katie O'Hanlon, but despite a lot of possession the visitors didn't really test the keeper in the opening forty five minutes apart from that moment mentioned above.
The home side didn't threaten too much but had a good spell either side of the break as they looked to try and nick a goal and then hold onto it perhaps, they were defending very well and after Oxford saw a goal ruled out for offside, they made five changes early in the second period to try and freshen things up and see if that could bring them a goal.
There was no denying the hosts commitment to the cause, they were fighting for their lives against a side who were getting increasingly frustrated that they hadn't found the breakthrough, but, with 81 minutes on the clock Oxford finally breached the hosts back line when a ball into the box wasn't dealt with and allowed Phoebie Poole to lash home an effort into the top corner, and now the hosts had it all to do with little time remaining.
Oxford did then have chances to seal the win late on, heading wide from close range and then seeing hosts keeper O'Hanlon produce a brilliant double save to deny Poole a second goal, but as the game neared it's conclusion, the hosts started to put pressure on the visitors backline, but they could not really test keeper Bethany-May Howard and it was Oxford who took all the points in this one.
Full time Billericay Town 0 Oxford United 1
So, how does that affect things in the table, let's have a look shall we:-
There was a dramatic late twist in the relegation battle between Billericay & Plymouth, when the final whistle sounded at New Lodge Billericay were in the bottom three because Plymouth were beating AFC Wimbledon 2-1 as that game entered six minutes of stoppage time, but, AFC Wimbledon levelled in the 94th minute to deny Plymouth a huge win, so that meant Plymouth stay in the bottom three on goal difference.
That means the final weekend of the season in two Sunday's time sees them both level on points with Billericay having a three goal advantage goal difference wise, incredible, ironically The Blues travel to AFC Wimbledon in their final game, whereas Plymouth travel to Gwalia United, it's sure to be a tense afternoon for both sides!!!
And Ipswich Town are all but champions now and will be playing Championship football next season after they demolished bottom side MK Dons 11-0 at Stadium MK, Hashtag did beat Exeter 2-0 themselves but it's going to take an almost impossible goal swing, an Ipswich loss and a Hashtag win of epic proportions for it not to end up with the Suffolk side taking the title. It's just not going to happen, so congratulations to Ipswich Town!!!
Anyway good luck to both Billericay Town & Plymouth Argyle in two weekends time, may the best team survive!!! Thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it.....
No comments:
Post a Comment