Chesterfield Ladies produced their best performance of the season so far on Sunday afternoon as they hammered top of the table Notts County Women 5-0 at Greenwich Avenue in the East Midlands Women’s Premier Division.
A brace from Georgina Williams plus goals from Millie Standen, Gina Camfield and Kel Fidler secured an outstanding return to winning ways after collecting one point from their last two games.
The victory means that Mike Noon’s side are up to second position in the league and just three points behind Notts County Women with a game in hand.
The visitors set their stall out very early on when in-form striker Georgina Williams narrowly missed the target from 18 yards out after just two minutes played. Williams came close again to giving Chesterfield the lead in the tenth minute when the County goalkeeper came off her line quickly to block the forward’s effort from just inside the penalty area.
Mike Noon’s side deservedly took the lead in the 27th minute. Georgina Williams’s electric pace allowed her to break free of the opposition defence to successfully chase a long ball forward. With just the goalkeeper to beat, Williams slotted the ball confidently into the back of the net to make it 1-0 to the visitors.
The hosts came close to equalising just two minutes later. County’s attempt on target from a free-kick in a dangerous position looked to be going in but Nic Watson produced an excellent save to tip the ball over the bar.
The importance of that save was amplified just eight minutes afterwards when Chesterfield Ladies found themselves 2-0 up. Patient passing and impressive build-up play involving numerous players allowed Millie Standen the opportunity to fire a shot on target from around 15 yards out and she made no mistake as her attempt was rifled past the County goalkeeper to double Chesterfield’s advantage.
It was a superb first half performance from the visitors; yet, their second half performance
was even better.
Young centre-half Millie Jebb-Geer came close twice to extending Chesterfield’s lead inside the opening ten minutes of the second half. In the 52nd minute, the teenager headed on target from 12 yards out following a corner which forced the County keeper into a decent save. Just three minutes later, excellent work from Kel Fidler on the left wing allowed her to cross the ball into the penalty area. The ball was met by Jebb-Geer and her close-range effort rolled wide of the post by mere inches.
The pressure just kept on coming and the vistors were soon rewarded with a third goal. A long ball from Jebb-Geer allowed Williams to break free of the defence once again to successfully chase the ball down. There was still plenty of work to do at this stage but Williams expertly rounded the Notts goalkeeper and curled the ball into the back of the net from an awkward angle to make it 3-0.
If anything, the pressure from the visitors only increased further and Chesterfield set themselves up superbly to secure a real statement victory.
Chesterfield went 4-0 up after 71 minutes when Gina Camfield’s close range effort was too powerful for the Notts goalkeeper to hold onto and the ball found the back of the net for Camfield’s ninth goal of the season.
Remarkably, Chesterfield Ladies bagged a fifth goal just six minutes later thanks to an excellent solo run and powerful finish from Kel Fidler.
In their hunt for a consolation goal, a rapid effort from Notts County Women in the 76th minute forced Nic Watson into an impressive save at her near post. The hosts came even closer with just one minute of normal time to go when a close-range effort smacked off the post. With virtually the last kick of the game, substitute Emma Young came really close to adding a sixth goal for the visitors when her shot from inside the penalty area rolled narrowly wide of the post.
The final whistle was blown very shortly afterwards to mark, arguably, one of the best performances in the club’s history and a win that puts them in a very strong position in the title race.
Chesterfield Ladies team: Watson, Cook, Pascoe, Jebb-Geer, Warren, Pashley, Standen, Baker, Fidler, Williams, Camfield. Used subs: Frances-Creaser, Phillips, Smyth, Young. Unused sub: Apperley.
Mike Noon Quotes:
“It’s certainly up there for one of the best ever performances in my time here…the work rate from everyone was excellent and they’ve grafted. Every time the ball was lost, we went and won it back straight away. I think that was something we lacked a little in the past couple of weeks. All the players are intelligent people and I think they recognised that and they wanted to do something about it. They had the bit between their teeth and were attacking at every opportunity. Credit to the players today, that was a brilliant performance from them.”
“Because there’s not many teams in our league, we can’t afford to drop many points throughout the course of the season. We lost two weeks ago at Lincoln United and then we drew last week against Mansfield. So it was a big game today. We tried to take that pressure off the players today by saying to them to just express yourselves. They’ve passed the ball brilliantly and our younger players were so good at passing the ball and keeping it today.”
“Some of the finishes today were outstanding. To be so clinical in front of goal has really helped us. This puts us back in the mix now. Had we lost today, a big gap would have appeared but the win today has made this league look a lot more exciting and there’s some interesting games coming up now in this division.”
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