Belles v Wolves this Sunday - International Women’s Day

[BVB]

As pointed out by VivaRovers on twitter, there are a number of local games you can go to this weekend if you don’t want to give your money to the franchise - one of those is the Belles at home to the runaway(?) league leaders at Rosso Main 2pm in what will be a very tough challenge for them.
However, in the reverse fixture Belles were holding them 2-2 before Wolves pulled away to win comfortably so there is always a chance and this is now a stronger and better organised Belles squad.
Added to that it will be International Women’s Day and Belles are pushing to bring more female family members along - nb Rovers STH have a free Belles ticket in your book and for this game Belles STH can get one U17 in free -otherwise £3 adult £1 U17.

[graingrover]

This game is likely to determine what next season’s ambitions will be for the Belles management  team . Wolves are running away with the Division this year .Will our management continue to play amateur players only  or will they bring in a few semi professionals to boost the chances of promotion to level 3.There is no probs woth amateir sraytuscof course but to keep the best amateurs Clib Doncaster May need to look at providing them with the same educational support that they provide to Rovers Academy players .

[BVB]

Belles 0 Wolves 1

Butler got his tactics right to restrict the number of chances that a free-scoring top of the league side would look to carve out - really unlucky not to come away with the draw.

Wolves are used to winning game by large margins and to only score one - which came from a dodgy free kick (aren’t they all) right on the half time whistle - shows how well the Belles managed the game.

They rode their luck a couple of times in the second half but against a side that beat them 7-2 in the reverse fixture shows how far they have come under Butler.

All the teams around Belles still have to play the top two - Belles play second-placed Birmingham next Sunday at home and on this performance should be confident of getting something from that game.

Just some further context - Wolves won 14 lost 1 goal diff +73. Biggest win 15-0, smallest win 1-0 - against the Belles.
Their entire squad STAYED OVERNIGHT at Lakeside.

[RoversAlias]

I thought it was a really encouraging performance. You could tell the difference in experience amongst the two sides but Belles defended really, really well and tried their best to create through smart football over halfway on the occasions they got some room to do so.

Nadia Khan made a difference with her pace off the bench. I was impressed with quite a few of the side actually, and there was certainly some interesting officiating shall we say.

For anyone interested, I'll be writing up a review of the game for ITEN to be published tomorrow.

[graingrover]

With a. 16 yr old keeper too I believe .

[BVB]

Graingrover FYI Ellie Sharpe was back in nets the 16 yr old was on the bench.

RoversAlias yes the ref didn’t make many friends today. Both sides were at him. Most blatant was when the Wolves keeper fumbled on the edge of her box and clearly scooped the ball back into her box from outside, and of course the four days it took the Wolves player to fall over after the challenge that led to the free kick from which they eventually scored right on half time..

[Dagenham Rover]

Sounds like a good performance and Andy B has them going in the right direction