Team Sunderland Women’s Futsal 2nds on course for league and cup double
The title-winning Team Sunderland Women’s Futsal 2nds may finish the season with a second bit of silverware, as they progressed to the Northern Conference Cup final this past weekend.
In what has already been a highly successful season, Sunderland wrapped up the league on Saturday, February 24 with comfortable victories against both UCLAN Women’s 1sts and Keele Women’s 1sts to add to their semi-final victory win over Liverpool John Moores Women’s 1sts.
A tight first-half in the Northern Conference Cup semi against Liverpool John Moores did not deter Sunderland, who put in a strong second half performance to come out 8-4 victors. The weekend also saw them defeat who will be their opponents in the final, Keele, 9-2 in a league game – while also dispatching of UCLAN in a dominant 14-0 win.
For club mainstay Victoria Curtis, the season was unsurprisingly viewed as a successful one with just one defeat marring their near perfect season with wins in the other nine league games, and she thinks the squad having a footballing background may have played a factor.
“A very successful season. I think it helps that we go from football into futsal and having that connection between the two rather than going to two separate teams, because the way that you play in football helps in futsal and vice versa so I think that is what really stood out with us compared to other teams.
“The cup semi-final went really well, we won 8-4. The first half was quite tight, we were winning 2-1 and I think it came back to being level or us only winning 4-3 at half-time. So, it was quite tight, but we pulled it back to beating them 8-4 after the second half.
“For the final (on Saturday , March 9) we might have to travel down to Keele again so as of now getting a team might also be a bit difficult with us travelling all the way down there for just one game – but I think we’ll be able to do it, we got all the way to the final so I’m sure we’ll be able to pull a team out to get there. It’s against Keele who we beat 9-2 at the weekend, so it’s looking good.”
The season as a whole wasn’t without it’s frustrations owing to low personnel within the squad seeing the same small cohort playing the bulk of the minutes. The main playing squad was comprised of just six in Curtis, Pavanjot Kaur, Katie Barker, Ellie Reed, Mia Tierney-Tomlinson and Cynthia Asogwa.
“Scraping for teams last minute as people didn’t really have commitment for futsal meant we had the bare minimum,” continued Curtis. “We were going into round robins where you have more than one game in a day and it’s not ideal – but we got the win quite a lot of the time and winning the league makes it ok in the end!
“There is definitely a tight-knit feel amongst those of us who compete regularly. It’s good in the sense that you’ve always got people to rely on, so we had a solid five or six players who you knew would turn up week in, week out. It might also be why we won, playing with the same people every week and we get to know how each other play so it could be seen as a positive as well.”
