Brentford Women’s First Team got off to a fantastic start to their LSE Regional WFL Division One North campaign as they beat Clapton Community 2-1 at Bedfont Sports.
Having played a couple of fixtures in pre-season, the Bees were set for their opening game of the campaign against the newly-promoted side as goals from Chloe Webb and Nikki Saunders helped Karleigh Osborne’s team to victory.
It was the away side who took the lead early in the half as winger Lirian Silva Santos put the side ahead. Despite falling behind, Brentford kept composed as they started to gain more of a foothold in the game as they worked a few openings at goal.
Brentford's Chloe Webb then managed to get on the scoresheet to level things 10 minutes before the break and it was Nikki Saunders, who was named Player of the Match, who grabbed the winner on 77 minutes as she cut in from the left-hand side before firing into the top left-hand corner to seal the three points.
Assistant Manager Sean Hillier was delighted to see the side get their season off to a fantastic start. He explained: “We’re over the moon to get off to a good start to get three points. They (Clapton) scored really early with their first attack, but we were proud of the way that the girls reacted to the situation. There was no panic in the group and they got straight back into the game plan, and we gained control of the game and played at our tempo.
“I would have loved to get the second goal a bit earlier, but we stayed patient and didn’t panic and that’s something that the girls have really improved on. Nikki scored a great goal, and it was great to see us keep control once we were ahead. We kept the ball high up the pitch and had some good passages of play in their half.
“It was a great goal from Nikki, on her competitive debut for us, so to see her get off the mark like that was perfect. She took it really well and she was relentless in attack all game.”
Having had a somewhat disrupted pre-season in terms of fixtures, the side have been hard at work in training and the fitness levels will continue to improve in the coming games.
“Mentally we’re in a great position,” said Sean. “Physically we are working away. Pre-season didn’t quite go to plan due to some cancelled fixtures which meant we had two friendly matches to prepare. We’ll keep picking up the pace.”
The side will now turn their attentions to a match with Dorking Wanderers on Sunday 28 August in a 3:30pm kick-off at Meadowbank football ground. Looking ahead to the match, Sean is expecting nothing less than a tough test.
He continued: “It’s going to be a tough game to gauge where we are. It’s exciting and it will be great to be involved in and hopefully we can get a good result there which will give us a huge confidence boost.”
Brentford Women: Hadrava, Goolab (Johnson, 70), Graver (Graham, 65), Langston-Lloyd, Webb, Holmes, Reid (Miller, 36), Troth, Saunders, Weaver (Peters, 23), Logie (Edema, 60)