Sunday the 17th of September saw Farsley Celtic Women back in action at The Citadel against a Golcar United who were riding high after winning both of their opening league matches so it was a battle of 100% records.
With a few enforced changes due to injuries and unavailability it was a great chance for some of our newer players to step up and stake a claim for regular starts including new signing Celma Ferreira, and new to open age football Evie Smith, Amyleigh Pearce, and Olivia Wheatley.
The match started slowly for Farsley with Golcar trying to set out their attacking intent for the day and forcing a couple of corners that were ultimately well dealt with by our defence before a couple of speculative rangefinders brought simple saves from the Golcar keeper.
Both teams found success creating chances and if not for some questionable finishing we could have seen goals on both sides after some great through balls that caused trouble in both defences.
Ultimately though, it was Farsley who made the breakthrough with debutante Celma Ferreira opening her account for the club with a nicely taken finish. The centre midfielder who recently joined us from Huddersfield Town showed a lot of class in the middle and there is a lot more to come from her.
The first half continued in this vein although we started to control the chances and possession a bit better after the opener with Shirley Muprhy and Celma both coming close to extending the lead.
The second Farsley goal came from a lovely through ball that Evie Smith was on to like a flash. Her pace carried her away from the defence and it was beautiful composure to take the ball around the goalkeeper and tuck it away for 2-0. Evie’s pace caused trouble for Golcar all day and she will be a real handful for any defence this season.
It was soon three though after Olivia Wheatley struck a beautiful volley that was unlucky to come back off the crossbar but fortunately fell at the feet of the incoming Lauren Rigby for what is quickly becoming her obligatory goal and the start of a brilliant captain’s display from her.
Going into half time with a three-goal advantage, the message from the coaches was clear. Keep up the intensity and pressure and we will continue to have success with the ball.
An early substitution brought Amyleigh Pearce into the game for Celma and she soon picked up where her teammate had left off by scoring our fourth goal of the day after a good save from the Golcar keeper came out to her and was finished with aplomb. The delight on her face was clear to see after a challenging introduction to the adult game and we can’t wait to see more as the season goes on.
Golcar were not without chances of their own but time and time again Leigh Bamford in the Farsley goal was able to shut them out and she thoroughly deserved her clean sheet after coming back into the team having taken part in the Great North Run the weekend before.
With the game reaching the final 20 minutes, we brought Tegan Elder onto the pitch for Evie Smith and her pace and pressing enabled us to keep taking the game to Golcar and give them no time to maintain possession.
On 80 minutes there was a real moment of quality from Lauren Rigby as she struck a sweet finish into the net from outside the box. It was an outrageous effort that almost came out of the blue as she gave us the five-goal advantage, but her job was not finished there.
The final goal was from Rigby again, whose hat trick granted her the day’s Player of the Match award, with another spectacular finish that was placed over the goalkeeper from a pretty wide angle and wowed everyone in attendance.
With the scoreboard reading 6-0 at the final whistle, it was a statement performance from Farsley to position themselves as one of the teams to beat in Division One this season and we hope to keep the 100% record going as we travel to Scott Hall Playing Fields to take on Republica Internationale on Sunday 24th of September.
