Maidenhead United Women were inspired by a Premier League goalkeeping legend as they continued their pre-season preparations against local Thames Valley Counties side Maidenhead Nomads who won their division last season.
In attendance at the game was Petr Cech, the former Chelsea and Arsenal goalkeeping legend. Cech posed for pictures with the players and staff at the end of a comprehensive win for United at Bisham Abbey in their third pre-season game, following defeats to top Tier 3 sides Oxford United and AFC Bournemouth in their earlier matches. Cech then showcase his acting skills by joining in with a Tik Tok reel with the Magpies goalkeeper Cherry Preisner! Astonishingly, the reels have had nearly 180,000 views across Tiktok and Instagram with nearly 4,500 'likes' of the posts on social media.
Manager Dave Kitson spoke about the Magpies relationship with the local grass-roots side, The Nomads: “It was great to reconnect with one of our local clubs. It was more than just a football match, it helps us to forge ties in the community, create conversations about where women’s football and girls’ football is in the community at the moment and provides us an opportunity to cross paths and to help one another out where possible. That is what this game symbolised more than anything else”
“It was a good game for us to play at this stage of pre-season. We don’t read too much into performances at this stage but it was great to see the girls stick to the metrics that they’ve chosen that will underpin our performances this year.”
Kitson was pleased with the team ethic showed by his side: “Players can fall into an individualistic mentality and they can start to showboat and do things they wouldn’t ordinarily do. We didn’t get any of that, what we got was from start to finish a team performance where they played together as a unit to help each other out, making sure we didn’t have players who frustrated the rest by going off the reservation and going rogue because when we start the season the only way is going to be going together as a squad all pulling in the same direction. So it was nice to see that shine through in the game”.
Speaking about Petr Cech, Kitson joked: “Our social media department doesn’t miss an opportunity to rope a Premier League legend into our social media content! What a great sport Petr was, getting involved. I didn’t think they’d get him to film a Tik Tok but he jumped straight into it and it came out great! If anybody hasn’t seen the Tik Tok video yet it is really funny, so fair play to him for getting involved. A real nice guy, really genuine. He gave time to everyone, the parents and the siblings as well as the players. he must have had 100 pictures taken that day but he was really generous with his time, so we were really grateful for that. It capped off a pleasing day.”
Maidenhead face further pre-season matches over the next coupe of weekends before they recommence league action at York Road on Sunday 16th August when they face FA Women’s National League Division 1 South West title-favourites Moneyfields in a 2pm kick off.
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