King Kenny pays tribute to development team mentality

 

Maidenhead United Women Development picked up their biggest win of their inaugural season with an emphatic 5-1 win over AFC Sudbury at Cox Green Leisure Centre on Sunday. The fledgling United team had a difficult start to their first ever season, losing their opening ten FAWNL South East & Central Reserve Division matches – a difficult period illuminated by an impressive League Cup run which displayed the potential and character of the team. 

 

Over the last two months however, the Magpies have won two and drawn one of their last six leagues matches, with a young group of players really starting to click. Goalkeeper Kenny Clarke captained the side last weekend and was a proud skipper as goals from Molly McKeever, Amy Norfolk, Anne-Marie Pejcic and a brace from RJ Jauad-Tarboda secured a thrilling victory. 

 

“We’ve had a pretty good run since January” remarked the ‘keeper. “It really feels like things have come together on the Development side, with improvement from the start of the season and players meshing.” The reverse fixture between the sides prior to Christmas had seen a depleted Magpies team defeated by an emphatic 10-0 margin and Clarke admits: “You want to avenge your previous circumstances and the previous scoreline but with the age of the team something that can be easily misconstrued is playing angrily and playing passionately. One of the things I said in the huddle pre-match was that ‘we all really want to win today, especially those that played in that last match, but you have to play smart, you have to play the way we have been playing because that is how you get the best revenge, with a cool head, playing our game controlling things and not trying to play for ourselves individually.’” 

 

Clarke continued: “Staying true to ourselves was the biggest part of the game and it would have been easy to lose our heads going 1-0 up and conceding a penalty. In the past we may have hung our heads even if the scoreline did not suggest we were doing a bad job, we would have felt like we were doing a bad job. We were able to rally and keep generating chances and converting those chances and at the end of the day we got five goals. Five-one, it really reflects our capabilities, how far we’ve come and maybe what should have happened in the first game had we been able to field a full team. I think that that result was definitely avenged on Sunday.” 

 

“The mentality was an enormous factor on Sunday. We had a bit of a delay (to kick off) because the opposition was late, so there were so many factors in play. There were a lot of strong feelings and a lot could have gone wrong but there was a sense of professionalism and a duty of care which really took control of business.” 

 

Maidenhead United Women players and staff wish to thank Graham and Lesley Alfred and their daughter Vanessa for their kind donation of sponsorship in memory of Tim Alfred to support the growth of the Development Team.