An Elle Bird brace was enough to secure a 2-0 cup victory for Evergreen Youth in a very tight game against Harvesters FC in the Cameo Kitchens U14 Girls’ Cup.
The crowd of a 150 were treated to an evenly matched contest at The County Ground between two teams currently finding momentum in the Hertfordshire Girls Football Partnership League.
The game kicked off at a pace, and Harvesters came closest to breaking the deadlock in the first half of play. Carly Amor went close from distance only five minutes in, before Nikita Bedi shot narrowly wide four minutes later.
Harvesters kept up the pressure in the opening period, and forced Evergreen keeper Lacy-Jean Kavanagh,to be at her best several times when collecting dangerous balls into the area.
At the other end, good link up play between Holly Williams and Ore Jacobi saw Harvesters keeper Molly Herrington called into action just before half-time.
It only took two minutes of the second half for Evergreen to score the first goal of the game, with Bird finishing neatly to put her team 1-0 up.
Harvesters came back into the game after going behind, and captain Sabrina Spring was unfortunate to see some strong positive play go without reward on a couple of occasions.
However, Bird was to have the final say, and drove a powerful strike into the top corner from 20 yards with 10 minutes left to double both her team’s lead and her tally for the day.
Evergreen Manager Mickey Williams expressed pride in his team after the game, saying: “I’m just so proud of this group of girls. To go and win this game with only 11 players is really special; the girls gave absolutely everything to win this cup.
“All of them played a blinder today, and I couldn’t be more proud.”