Grace Coombs enjoyed her Sunday afternoon at the Bauvill as she not only scored her first goal in well over a season, but the Chatham Town Women’s skipper looked at home in another impressive home victory. 

The Chat’s Women side made it two home wins from two with a four-goal drubbing of London Bees which saw the skipper not only power her side in front at a corner midway through the opening half, but also saw Coombs and her defensive colleagues keep a second clean sheet in three games at the start of the new season. 

“We had a disappointing week last week when we lost at Old Actonian’s, but if we can be strong at home, it’s going to set our foundations and now its two home games and nine goals scored, we can’t really complain as its six points!” 

“We were relegated with the London Bees last year and we knew that they were going to be a good side and knew it was going to be tough, but I think we took our chances well, three goals from set-pieces. I thought we defended really well and we’re all really happy with the clean sheet as well.” 

The skipper opened the scoring and admitted, “It doesn’t happen very often!” she joked.

“The delivery that we have had from set-pieces in the last few games has been unbelievable – Ellie (Jeffkins), Lucy (Jones), Jas (Auguste) – and it’s up to us to make the most of them and to be fair we probably should have scored some more from set pieces at the weekend.

“If that is a weapon that we can have that is going to benefit us during the season. We have been working on it during training, and it makes all worthwhile when it comes out in games, it is all you can ask for really and I think it is just showing the commitment that we are putting in during the week and in games as well.

“It does not always happen and its difficult sometimes because teams throw different things at you. The Bees did again at the weekend, and we struggled at the start with it, but we are doing better with learning as we go with the girls on the pitch adjusting as we go, and we are frustrating teams.

“They had more of the ball on Sunday, but we ended up winning 4-0, so it’s just like being patient and understanding that if they have it in certain areas then that’s fine, we can just sit in behind or we can bide our time and that’s what we did!” 

“They only had one really good chance in the second half which Simone (Eligon) made a really good save from, and we will take that all day long.

“You don’t have to have the ball in every game, we know that teams are going to want to come at us and we have to adapt and play differently, we cannot play the same way every game; we’ve adapted in all the games that we have had, even the game in the League Cup last week.

“That’s all we can do, mix-up how we are playing, adapt to the teams and if teams are going to have more possession but we score four goals and keep a clean sheet, then I will take it all day long!” 

The Chats lost two-nil to the holders Hashtag United, and the skipper told us, “We were underdogs going into that game, it was a free hit for us as we weren’t expected to get a result in the game against a side from the League above who have had a good start to their season and are Cup holders.

“We knew that we could go and play and do our thing needing a reaction from losing at Old Actonian’s, so Wednesday we needed a reaction, and it really was more about the performance rather than the result, we were happy with that, and we took it into Sunday as the League is far more important for us and we did that.” 

The Chats Women side now face two away trips to Real Bedford and Norwich, sides who boss Keith Boanas has identified as two of his sides real potential rivals.

“We know a little bit about Bedford as they have a lot of the old MK Dons players and Norwich will be strong especially at home as they always are.

“But you know, I think that that will work in our favour this year as we don’t know too much about any of the teams which just means that we will focus on ourselves, do what we know we can do and the rest will take care of itself really, and let teams worry about us. As long as we do the right things we have confidence that we are going to get results.” 

Image courtesy of Allen Hollands