HOWAY THE LASSES

Good things happen on a football pitch when Anna Soulsby gets consistent game time, it took the winger barely 90 seconds to open the scoring in her Cestria home debut yesterday afternoon. With the start of Newcastle United Women's first season in the Barclays Women's Championship still a fortnight away it was nice to see a few of the regular faces from Kingston Park travel down to Durham to support Anna making her home debut. Late in the week, this match was moved from Cestria's regular Maiden Castle ground to nearby Brandon United's ground so there is still the "official" home debut to come. It was a well taken goal. Fans didn't get to see much of Nicki Gears during her time at Kingston Park but she put in a solid 90 minutes yesterday, looking lively throughout the match. Following a run down the left wing, a superb Gears ball into the box found it's way to Soulsby at the back post who sent it back across goal and low into the bottom corner. The equal...

  The group stage draw for this season's Conti Cup has now been made with Newcastle United Women, ball number 6 in the draw, coming out of the bag first. Group A consists of: Newcastle United Everton Manchester United Liverpool  And, depending on how they do in the Champions League, there is still the possibility that Manchester City could be added to the group.  Group B would seem to be a considerably less challenging group, made up entirely of Barclays Women's Championship teams - Durham, Sunderland, Blackburn Rovers & Sheffield United - but whilst on paper we appear to have a group of death on par with NUFC Men's 2023/23 Champions League group is that actually the case? The Conti Cup adapted it's current format of North and South group stages in the 2018/19 season. The final of that first season's tournament saw Manchester City play out a 0-0 draw with Arsenal before winning 4-2 on penalties. Emma Hayes' Chelsea have featured in every final since, beating...

Whilst we await the start of the Barclays Women's Championship and Barclays Women's Super League seasons in the coming weeks, this afternoon, Sunday 18th August, saw the FAWNL leagues get their 2024/25 season's underway with a number of former Newcastle United Women players featuring across both Division One North (tier 4) and Northern Premier Division (tier 3).  Without a doubt, the highlight of the opening weekend was a hat trick for popular winger Anna Soulsby in her debut for tier 4's Durham Cestria. Soulsby scored all 3 of Cestria's goals in a 2-3 away win against Doncaster Rovers Belles (half-time 1-1) in front of a 281 crowd at Doncaster's Eco-Power Stadium.  The hat-trick sees Soulsby take an early lead in the tier 4 golden boot contest. As it stands after weekend one: Anna Soulsby (Cestria) 3, Molly Wood (Chorley) 2, and thirteen players with 1.  The starting 11 for Middlesbrough Women heavily featured players who have previously worn the black & wh...

This past weekend saw Newcastle United Women return to St. James' Park, as part of the annual Sela Cup Weekender, to take on Italian opposition in the form of AC Milan with their iconic red and black striped kit. Saturday was the fans' first chance to see Becky Langley's new look side in action, now playing in the hugely popular Adidas kit, since they secured promotion to the Barclays Women's Championship back in May. An early goal of the season contender from Elysia Boddy and penalty shoot out heroics from goalkeeper Hannah Hawkins saw the lasses maintain their hundred percent record at St. James' Park and lift the inaugural Women's Sela Cup trophy. The first stoppage of the match came after only 33 seconds. From the resulting free kick, the visitors played some nice passes around the edge of the NUW penalty area but it ultimately came to nothing. First signing of the summer Shania Hayles made her first contribution of the match shortly after, winning a free ki...