While you were all rushing to the shops to pick up last week’s Wokingham Paper, Reading FC Women hosted our Sister Club event at the Madejski Stadium.
This was a two day girls only soccer school exclusive to the players within our sister clubs; Tilehurst Panthers, Laurel Park, Berkshire County FC, Westwood Wanderers and Thatcham Tornadoes.
It was nice to see so many young girls there enjoying their football with their Reading FC shirts on.
One girl even had a signed Emma Follis number 7 top on. I wonder how much she paid her…
Last week ended with a team Nandos followed by a trip to our home ground to watch England Women play against Serbia.
It was an immense feeling walking into a packed Adams Park with the girls, the atmosphere was brilliant.
The crowd we welcome on game days are a little more modest. However, it gave us and the club future incentives and it was a massive positive for the women’s game to see yet another packed out stadium.
The England game played out as everyone expected and funnily enough as Emma Follis predicted in our halftime interview over the tannoy.
Unfortunately no one could hear her, or Brutes for that matter. Although there were no issues hearing myself, my mum taught me well.
England sailed through the game with a 7-0 victory and a very dominant performance.
There was one very specific part of the game that stood out to me. England had a corner and I think they were already 6 up by now.
The Serbian number 2 on the back post got so caught up in the atmosphere she started to dance.
I’ve never seen anything like it.. I’d of loved to see her celebration if Serbia managed to nick one.
Wales played Norway on Tuesday night live on BBC 2 Wales and some of our loyal fans made the trip to support the girls, displaying once again why we really do have the best fans in the league.
The girls put in a brilliant performance and started the brightest of the two teams but sadly conceded two goals in the second half with the game finishing 2-0 to Norway.
Grace Moloney’s Ireland team beat Montenegro 9-0 in their Euro qualifier on the same night.
While most of the girls were away on senior International duty, Molly Bartrip got her first call up to the England U23s squad for the Nordic tournament.
With impressive performances against Norway, Sweden and USA, the girls secured a second place finish narrowly missing out on goal difference.
Massive congrats to all the girls who have been away this week, you’ve done us all proud but hurry up and get back now as you’ve got a lot of running to catch up with.
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Questions (from Shohaib Shah)
There are a few weeks to go until Reading’s next league game at home to Birmingham. How is the team’s mentality and mood in training?
The mood in camp has been great for the past week or so since we’ve been back to full time training after our break.
Everyone has come back refreshed and raring to go. The Birmingham home game is going to be a massive game for us.
It’s one we all believe if we put in the performance we are capable of, it will hopefully be the first win of our campaign and give us great momentum going into the second half of the season.
What steps have you taken to ensure you come back stronger from injury and refreshed after the internationals?
The injury I suffered was to my knee so I’ve managed to do a lot of strength work in the gym to get my legs stronger in order to prevent any recurring injuries.
With that said, Callum the physio will definitely come back stronger, mentally, as the things he’s had to put up with from spending too much time with me.
I think he will finally be glad to see the back of me and the feelings mutual, no hard feelings Cal.
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