A QUIRK OF FATE

 

Portsmouth Women 9 (nine) Cardiff City Women 0

3^rd September 2023.

The announcement, when it came, was met with a shrug, a sigh, and then another sip of our drinks. Sat on platform one at Havant train station, the monotone announcer had given the not unexpected news that another train had been cancelled. Being a Sunday, there are only two trains an hour, so a third cancellation in a row was greeted with resignation. After a pause, my uncle broke the silence.

“We could have stayed at home”.

I contemplated this for a moment, whilst my daughter sat swinging her feet next to us.

“Yeah…but nine goals!”. The defence rests, m’lud.

I’ve always been happy watching football at any level. Since my teenage years, I would take in any game I could find on television. My parents got Sky Sports purely for me to watch the Premier League, Football League, Scottish League, La Liga. As I got older, technology improved and the game expanded globally, the ability to watch ever more obscure matches grew. My wife, as I’ve mentioned previously, is from New Zealand. What better way to show how much I love her than by supporting a team from her country. As a result, I now own multiple Wellington Phoenix kits, and will set my alarm to coincide with ridiculously early kick-off times to watch them play. Perfectly normal behavior. The trend within my family to gift me random football tops for Christmas and birthdays now gives me a self-inflicted list of clubs to follow – FC Basel, Perugia, Al-Ahly (Egypt), Hearts of Oak FC, amongst many others. Add in familial influence in being raised as a Celtic fan, and being introduced at an impressionable age to Hendon FC, it’s quite a challenge to keep up with the admin of supporting more than one team.

In October 2014, I went to watch Reading Women. I woke up that morning, and declared to my wife that I was going to watch a women’s football match. What put this into my head, I cannot recall. She smiled sympathetically and asked who I was going to watch, which was a detail I hadn’t contemplated. A quick internet trawl showed Reading concluding their WSL2 campaign at Farnborough FC, their home ground, and the third nearest ground to our house. They won 3-0, and despite zero previous interest in Reading Football Club, I found myself starting to care about the Women’s team results. They had a good side, featuring a young Fran Kirby, just prior to her breakout World Cup in Canada and subsequent move to Chelsea. Reading got promoted that season (wisely using the proceeds of the Kirby sale to strengthen the squad) and spent the next eight seasons in the topflight of English football as the spotlight grew on the Women’s game. They finally succumbed to the financially restricted inevitability last season as they were relegated back to where I had seen them promoted with a victory at Aston Villa in 2015.

They’ve given me some of my most enjoyable moments watching football. That victory against Aston Villa, with the celebration on the coach on the way home (I won a Becky Jane signed shirt – never realized who small professional women’s players could be until I tried to wear the top myself.  It wasn’t a success). A few seasons later, an FA Cup Quarter-final against a fledgling Manchester United side was the first game I had attended with my stepdad in about two decades. The celebration of Rakel Honnudottir’s last minute winner was borne of sheer elation, and slightly put into perspective by my then two-year old’s daughter confused expression at all the excitement around her, whilst she continued eating some raisins that she had dropped from the concrete. I’ve seen some phenomenally World class players at the Select Car Leasing stadium and beyond – Mead, Miedema, Kirby, Fara Williams, Earps. The look on my daughter’s face when getting a selfie with Tash Dowie (they had matching nail colours) took the edge off a defeat.

As Reading are now operating away from the increasingly well-funded topflight, I’ve started to cast an eye further down the women’s pyramid. The growth in participation at the lower reaches of the women’s game means that, locally, there are plenty of choices for myself and my daughter to visit on a Sunday afternoon. And most games do take part on a Sunday afternoon, which is ideal for us as a family – with my wife and daughter’s various rugby-commitments in the morning, it means I can easily bribe our daughter into going to a football match with the promise of some snacks and a train journey to a new ground (at this point it’s worth noting that I am not convinced she actually likes football). Within a short cycle or train journey, we have Rushmoor Community, Fleet Town and Badshot Lea as hosts of established women’s set-ups, whilst I have a teammate in my Monday night five-a-side team who is a coach with Basingstoke Town Women’s team.

The last day before she returned to school after the summer holidays, I decided to treat her to a train journey to Havant. The chance to visit a new stadium – neither of us have been to Westleigh Park previously – and watch a game in glorious late summer sunshine. Portsmouth Women call Havant’s ground their home, and it is an excellently set-up non-league ground. Covered terraces on three sides, with a small seated stand completing the ground. Tea-huts were on each corner, though only one was open today. It was worth queuing up, for two reasons. Firstly, the pleasant Portsmouth fan who I got into conversation with whilst waiting, who resided in Camberley, a short bus ride from us. Secondly, the well-regarded “Hawks Burger”. Now, it’s worth pointing out that I have picked a match and ground to visit based purely on the burger before (Basingstoke Town, easily the greatest burger I have ever eaten. No, honestly). The “Hawks Burger” was genuinely nice, and whilst I wouldn’t have taken the train all the way to Havant just to purchase one, I can now happily add it to the list of “Exceptional Burgers I Have Eaten”.

Sometimes it’s nice to go to a match with no expectations, easier to achieve for the lesser reported levels of the pyramid. It’s like going to watch a gig, and never having heard of the support act, so you can form an opinion on them live, rather than from listening to their output on your streaming service of choice. On that basis, I decided not to look up how Portsmouth or Cardiff had started the seasons, who played for them, the club history. However, after the match, I do sort of regret that. For it appears there are TWO Cardiff City teams. There are Cardiff City Women, who are affiliated to Cardiff City FC, and there is Cardiff City Ladies, Portsmouth’s opponents, who split away from the Bluebirds in 2004, and have been independent ever since. Promoted back to the Women’s Premier Division South this season, they were visiting a Portsmouth side who had turned semi-professional in June 2023.

From the outset, Portsmouth were exceptional. They took the lead inside two minutes, when former Reading academy prospect Sophie Quirk won a duel inside the area and slotted the ball past Grace Horrell-Thomas in the Cardiff goal. Quirk was outstanding throughout, offering an outlet on the left-hand side, willing to run with the ball, and linking up well with her fellow forwards. Cardiff started to settle down and work their way into the game, but whenever the did manage to break through, Portsmouth's defence shut them down, and through the calmng figure of Jazz Younger would launch another attack. The visitors held out until the 20^th minute before conceding again, this time Quirk starting the move which led to Annie Rolf running onto Emma Jone's deft flick to run through on goal and calmly firing by Horrell-Thomas. Quirk doubled her tally a few minutes later, this time rounding the keeper before rolling the ball into the empty net. She then missed a hat-trick of chances inside the next few minutes, hitting the bar from close range, and putting another two efforts just wide. Her power, pace, and direct running led to the Cardiff full-back, Poole, to have enough of this carry on, and attempted to haul her down. I say “attempted”, as Quirk just shrugged her off and kept powering towards goal. The intent was there however, and the referee recognized this when brandishing the yellow card.

That it was only three at half-time was due in part to Portsmouth’s profligacy in front of goal, and to some excellent keeping by Horrell-Thomas. Cardiff did have Welsh international Laura O’Sullivan in the dugout, but even Laura would not have done any better than Horrell-Thomas. In the second half, Portsmouth were more ruthless. Emma Jones, until now a link-up player whilst Quirk and Beth Lumsden ran amok out wide opened her account with a close range finish from a Lumsden run and pull-back, then ten minutes later scored a textbook centre-forward’s header from near the penalty spot, the luckless Horrell-Thomas unable to keep the thumping header out of the top corner. Quirk then turned provider, shrugging off another attempted foul, before slotting the ball to Dani Lane, whose two touches were exquisite – one to get the ball under control, the other to slide the ball past the onrushing keeper. Portsmouth withdrew their two players on a brace, Quirk and Jones, at this stage, so it was left to Lane to collect the match-ball with two late goals. Her first summed up the afternoon for both sides. Lumsden, who alongside Nicole Barrett on the right-hand side, was outstanding all afternoon, went through on goal, only for Horrell-Thomas to brilliantly save on the edge of the box. The rebound, however, fell directly to Lane thirty yards out, whose first-time clip sailed over the scrambling keeper to drop into the bottom corner. She completed her hat-trick from the penalty spot after Lumsden was tripped inside the area. There was still time for Lumsden to claim another assist, this time setting up Emily Pitman to score from close range.

Sometimes you can say that a scoreline doesn’t reflect the play, but that would not be true in this case. Arguably, if Portsmouth had doubled their total that would have been an accurate reflection. Cardiff battled throughout but were just blown away by the power and directness of the hosts attacking play. I genuinely don’t remember Hannah Haughton in the Pompey goal making a save all afternoon. Without knowing how the rest teams in the division are set-up, I confidently predict that Portsmouth will be near the promotion push towards the end of the season, especially if Lumsden, Jones, Quirk and Lane can stay fit and in form. Defensively solid, creative in midfield, and pacy and skillful up front, they have everything you would expect to see in a title-challenging team.

We had plenty of time to ponder the promotion merits of Pompey as we sat for several hours at Havant station, with numerous trains falling to the signal failure between two places we'd never heard of. Having watched a few games from the newly-renamed Women's Championship, there is nothing to suggest that Portsmouth wouldn't be at the very least competitive at that level, and it's a credit to the club that they've taken the leap to obtain semi-professional status. A nine goal victory, following victories by five and eleven goals in their previous two games, shows that the club have certainly got their recruitment right so far, and I would hope that the various girls in attendance (whether through a support of Portsmouth FC, or attracted by the recent Women's World Cup) will see players like Quirk, and want to emulate them