Football team beat Star Primary rivals

Ravenscroft Primary’s girls’ football team celebrated victory in their first-ever match.

After two half-terms of attending school football club once a week, the team met local counterparts Star Primary.

It was uncharted territory for most of the Ravenscroft girls and nerves and excitement were evident in equal measure.

When Star arrived in their smart red strip, everyone was anxious to have their first kick of the ball.

With a squad of 14 available for a six-a-side match, Ravenscroft made frequent changes to ensure playing time for everyone.

The starting line-up saw Akarni Jordan-Hibbert in goal, with Armonda Llukovi, Molly Lake, Mia Kaylor, Chloe Gormley and Kairi Hughes as outfield players and the opening exchanges in the game were tentative.

The more experienced Star Primary players seemed to settle the better, even though they were away from home and exerted consistent pressure on the Ravenscroft goal, but Jordan-Hibbert kept them at bay.

After 10 minutes of play and the scoreline still blank, the first changes were made by Ravenscroft and these helped to break the deadlock.

The involvement of Gemma Hall proved particularly important as more Ravenscroft pressure resulted in a corner and Hall’s cross into the box was tucked into the corner of the goal through a crowd of players by Fahmida Begum.

Hall doubled the lead soon after with a well-struck shot that gave the Star Primary keeper no chance to make it 2-0 at the interval.

The early exchanges in the second half saw Star Primary re-invigorated after their half-time team-talk, but Ellie Sexton, the third of four different players to have a spell in goal for Ravenscroft on the day, made a couple of key saves.

After weathering Star Primary’s resurgence, it was Ravenscroft’s turn to resume attacking and Chloe Gormley added her name to the scoresheet to make it 3-0 and put the result beyond doubt.

A spokesperson said: “All credit should be given to Star Primary who continued to battle in defence and take every opportunity to get forward in search of a consolation goal.

“It was a game played in superb spirit, well refereed by Mr Khan.”

Ravenscroft: Kairi Hughes, Akarni Jordan-Hibbert, Grace Kaylor, Meerub Anjum Mir, Mia Kaylor, Joyce Ofil, Ellie Sexton, Fahmida Begum, Chloe Gormley, Molly Lake, Myesha Ahmed, Maariya Tasnim, Armonda Llukovi, Gemma Hall.