Our first home game of the season and with a couple of faces missing from the squad and some old faces donning their red jerseys again, we had a go at a new-ish formation and faced off against a youthful looking Bowdon 3s side. 5 minutes before the start and we realised that we hadn't had our usual morning text from Captain Gemma, which made us feel very uneasy and all out of sync, but it was made up for (sort of) by being delivered verbally instead!

From the first whistle Urmston seemingly had control of the game. Passes were linking up nicely and the 1-2s were coming thick and fast making Bowdon sweat. Unfortunately, we couldn't quite capitalise on our opportunities in their D, but our forwards and wingers Mo, Halle, Charlotte, and Jess continued to pester Bowdon's defence.

Our own defensive line of Imo, Emma, Bea, Claire and Sophie, were communicating well and handling all of Bowdon's counter-attacks by marking tight and making well-timed tackles and interceptions, and it was starting to become clear that we were frustrating Bowdon, who were fresh off a 9-0 victory and were clearly hungry to get another 3 points.

About 25 minutes in and Bowdon found an unfortunate gap in our formation and made a break into our D, before managing to slot one home to make it Bowdon 1 - 0 Urmston.

Half time talk and we were pleased with how we were playing and knew we could easily bring it back with some continued communication and teamwork.

Second half and Imo continued to toy with Bowdon's press with her disguised passing (so much so that a Bowdon player asked her at the end how to do it) to our midfielders Becky, Gemma and Amy, who created much-needed chances further up the field but to no avail as Bowdon's defence managed to answer each of our attacks.

An opportunity then presented itself when a Bowdon player received a green card - could we capitalise on this and get our much-needed goal? Unfortunately, approximately 20 seconds later, our very own Becky received a green card too.

Bowdon continued to increase the pressure and were awarded a few short corners and had a couple of open shots on goal but couldn't change the scoreline any further.

Final score, Urmston 0 - 1 Bowdon.

An unlucky result but one we'll accept knowing that it could have easily gone in our favour. Onto the next one!