Sunderland Ladies completed their first season in FA WSL 1 with a defeat to champions Chelsea last weekend. However, they led the table at times during the season and can hold their heads high. They can take a lot of confidence from their performances and can rightly look forward to next season.
Sunderland Ladies finished the season in a very respectable 4th place. Head coach Carlton Fairweather said “If you said at the beginning of the season that we would finish second bottom I’d have taken it, so what we have done is tremendous and we need to remember that. The girls have done a really fantastic job and if you look at the teams above us, we are in good company. It has been a great season.”
Sunderland began their season with the main plan being to stay in the league. They began the season very brightly by beating the current league champions Liverpool 2-1, but recorded only one win in the next four matches. This included conceding eight goals in two games.
All of sudden though, Sunderland got themselves into top gear. From the beginning of May to the beginning of August, they went on an excellent run of form, and did not let the gap taken for the Women’s World Cup stop their momentum. During this period they won six (a winning streak) and drew one. The run included a 4-0 victory over eventual champions Chelsea. In total they scored 22 goals in this period, the star of the show being forward Beth Mead. She said this when the Black Cats were second in the table, “It’s been a dream season for me, I would have bitten your hand off just to have scored a few but to be top scorer in the league is a dream come true. Now hopefully we can finish the season well, so these goals count for something.” Mead finished the season having scored 14 goals in 19 appearances.
With seven games remaining many fans were wondering if the Ladies could actually do what seemed unlikely a few months previous and win the title at their first attempt. Unfortunately, Sunderland couldn’t keep up with the more experienced teams in the league. After the draw with Liverpool at the beginning of August, they could only manage one more draw in those final seven games and eventually finished fourth in the league, 12 points off the top of the table. For a season where not much was expected, the Ladies and their fans were left wondering what could have been.
Reflecting on the season Fairweather said, “It has been a successful season. The fact we have done so well and competed shows that we deserved to be in this league – we have matched and sometimes bettered the best teams in the division. Our progress and overall results from the campaign are a credit to the players, the staff and everyone else involved within the club.”
Victoria Greenwell who after seven years at the club has announced her retirement added, “Obviously it’s a disappointing way to end but we have to remember what we’ve achieved during the season. When I look back at my time at the club, we’ve come so far, to be playing at the top, having earned the right to be there.”
Sunderland Ladies performed above expectations and if they can take the many positives from this season into next, then they should do well, and there’s every chance an improvement on this seasons final position could be improved upon.
