A minutes silence was observed for student Chris Taylor who sadly passed away during the January exam period. Chris was a Chemistry student, avid member of the Tennis club and IDFC footballer. All of us here at the University of Bath would like to send Chris’ family and friends our deepest and sincerest condolences.
The biggest opponent today seemed to be the weather as all sports clubs battled to beat the rain and play their first fixtures since the week prior to the Christmas break. All teams expected a tough day as they braved the heavy rain and driving winds.
The women’s football team were one of very few that were actually capable of playing a match this week as the weather battered the University of Bath leaving waterlogged pitches and dangerous conditions in its wake. The game started with a fairly steady tempo, with neither team quite able to settle on the ball frequently balls played over the top by Bath ran straight through to the Marjons goalkeeper and Marjons found that their through balls were caught in the swirling winds. The first real goal scoring opportunity presented itself to Marjons who’s striker had literally just needed to touch the ball from all of 2 yards to find the net however she snatched at the shot and the slow moving ball went straight beneath her foot and the chance came to nothing. Bath were finding the weather to be their biggest stumbling bloke as they tried to launch attack after attack on to be thwarted by the wind and rain and if that wasn’t enough the dubious offside decisions of a clearly inept Marjons lines woman didn’t help much. However on the 23rd minute the first real piece of quality occurred as a cutting ball was played through the Marjons defence for the number 7 to slide into the bottom corner one on one with the goalkeeper after making an unspotted run from the left wing. The game seemed to pick up a bit from here but quality was sparse as the weather continued it assault on the infield football pitch and the 22 ladies playing on it, however 10 minutes later the number 7 who’d spent most of the game chasing back and forth got another good break to knock the ball past the goalkeeper again this time in the middle of the box to put Bath 2-0 ahead. The game was put beyond all doubt just before half time when the number found herself in a shooting position and put it away to make it 3-0 before half time, thus ending the first half and the game as a contest.
The first real surprise coming into the second half was the very real lack of meaty challenges that this weather normally encouraged nevertheless the rain and now very sodden pitch had not dampened the Bath ladies as they continued to attack, find very little joy in front of goal, as they tried to pretty much walk it in when it would have been easier to just take the shot. The best opportunity of the early second half came from a low cross from the right only for the striker to hit her shot straight at the out of position goalkeepers despairing dive to block the initial cross, even with the ball spinning back towards goal nobody gambled and was eventually picked up and cleared by the goalkeeper. The next opportunity saw yet another good opportunity go awry as the striker sought to round the goalkeeper only for the keeper to knock the ball against the attacker allowing the ball to slip away on the saturated surface. Finally Bath got the fourth and final goal which didn’t really change anything, as the number 10 who probably was offside this time but not flagged by the drenched and broken spirited lines woman sped down the right wing and place the ball neatly past the goalkeeper. From this point on everyone seemed pretty content with the result with no real desire to make any runs or attempts to increase or decrease the score line.
Bath looked far superior to their opponents despite some fairly sticky moments, a game that was largely dictated by the weather and never materialised into anything more than a struggle against the elements. Bath were good for the win as Marjons never really got started and couldn’t recover from the set back of missing that early chance and going 1-0 down. Overall Bath look strong going into their next fixture.
SU Sport Reporter Edward Attwood