The first game of the season saw Southend and Benfleet 1s travelling to face Brentwood 2s on a warm September afternoon. Both teams were eager to begin and play was pretty even at the outset. Soon though, S&B found their stride and pressured the Brentwood defence with several attacks on their D. One such attack culminated in Kirsty Durban being the first on the scoreboard for the season as she slotted the ball past the Brentwood goalie with practiced ease. The few attacks Brentwood managed to organise were expertly seen off by S&B defensive stars Bex Utton and Nina Dabbs, whose great communication and diligent marking blocked off attacks from the left and meant that S&B had a clean slate at half time.

S&B pressured the home side by keeping most of the play in the Brentwood half and with great positioning from Hayley Middleton and Adele Cole, which allowed the ball to be funnelled out to the wings for strong assaults on the Brentwood goal, it wasn’t long before the ball found last season’s top goal scorer, Claire King, in the D pinging the ball into the back of the goal taking the score to 2-0. Brentwood defended well though as they swarmed S&B free hits and had several shots at the S&B goal through the second half, but goalie Lisa Hawkins was able to deflect the ball every time snuffing out Brentwood’s chances of making it onto the scoreboard before the final whistle.

With everyone playing brilliantly, player of the match was a difficult decision, but in the end it was awarded to Lora Sharples as she was integral to so much of the play in this tough but great start to the season.