Darlaston Town (1874) Ladies played their first ever first home game, playing in the traditional Darlaston colours of blue and white, with several players away we were down to the bare bones only having 13 players available.

The visitors Shifnal Town Ladies this season will be playing league football 3 divisions higher and last season finished runners up in the West Midlands Regional Women’s Leagues Division One North just missing out on promotion into the Premier Division.

Therefore, Darlaston’s management were expecting a difficult test and also a good guide as to how successful Darlaston’s pre-season training had been.

Darlaston’s Ladies side started the game sprightly having good possession in key areas, looking dangerous going forward. All the girls hard work paid off when the breakthrough came 15 minutes into the game.

Darlaston winger Chelsea Fellows corner resulted in causing a melee in the visitor’s defence, the finally fell to inform striker Sarah Lojko whose low well struck shot scored the home sides first of the afternoon.

Darlaston doubled their lead 4 minutes later, after some great link up play between Lojko and fellow striker Lauri Alexander, it was Alexander’s control shot that left the keeper stranded giving Darlaston a 2-0 lead.

Things were starting to look good for the home side, as the pressed hard, forcing errors from the Shifnal midfield. Shifnal’s “never say die” attitude showed well as they fought their way back into the game and they clawed their way back into the match with the goal of the game. A Darlaston defensive header was not picked up by the home defence and a Shifnal midfielder smashed a perfectly connected half-volley from 30 yards powering in the top corner of the net, to make the scoreline 2-1.

Second half started well again for the home side as they scored within the first minute of the restart, Alexander and Lojko linking well once again, this time it was Lojko that scored from a tight angle after a run along the by line to score Darlo’s third of the game.

Once again Shifnal Ladies never gave up, they kept fighting to gain a foothold in the game, and their tenacity paid off, taking advantage of two mistakes by the home defence both were scored from distance from outside the home teams penalty area meaning the game ended in a draw, so would say a fair result.

Club Photographer Jayne Cartwright was on hand to photograph yesterdays game, which meant an awful lot to Jayne as she has long been associated with both clubs and members of both teams. Jaynes pictures can be seen by clicking Shifnal Town Ladies Album

Scott McKee said after the game “The result was the important, the management needed to know how we fair against tougher opposition, I thought we held our own and at times looked very impressive, it was definitely a learning curve for players and management.”

Next Sunday afternoon Darlaston Ladies travel to York Road, ROWLEY REGIS to take on Bustleholme Ladies kick off 2 pm