The Tornados were on the road again, this time to Pennington JFC near Atherton. A number of absences this week meant we were down to seven players, with a mixture of experience and summer signings on the team sheet.

Under a clear blue sky and with a winter chill in the air, the game started off with much of the action in the middle of the park as both teams battled for early possession. Suddenly, Pennington latched onto an out ball from the midfield melee and their tricky No. 9 broke through the Tornados defence to hit a low drive into the bottom corner. Undeterred and with unshaken resolve, the Tornados quickly found their rhythm in midfield and began to stamp their authority on the game.

The link up play between the midfield trio of Olivia Loxton-Cocker, Annie Richmond, Chloe Lomax and Evie Riley in the striker role soon clicked into gear, with some early shots from range dealt with easily by the tall Pennington keeper. The girls quickly realised that they needed to be closer in on goal to cause this keeper any concerns and Chloe almost obliged, winning the ball on the right wing before dribbling past a defender and hitting an exquisite low drive towards the bottom left corner which just skimmed the other side of the post.

The dominance in midfield soon paid off with Annie finding space between their defenders to fire in a shot from close range to level. The Tornados were now seemingly camped in the oppositions half, creating multiple opportunities to score with just the final ball eluding them. Pushing up into the left midfield area, Katherine Protheroe played a great through ball to Evie who carried the ball to the by line before hitting a precision pass into the path of Annie, striking the ball first time to put the Tornados ahead. The resultant kick off caught the Tornados by surprise and their tricky No. 9 once again picked up the ball in midfield, before skipping past several players to score a wonderful solo goal.

In the second half, the front four switched positions and were immediately creating opportunities, one of which saw Evie latch onto a deflected shot by Olivia to put the Tornados ahead once more. Minutes later, a lovely weighted pass by Annie split the Pennington defence for Olivia to run onto and hit a cleanly struck shot into the bottom corner. Evie was linking the play well from central midfield, but a knock to the ankle bone saw her limping off 10 minutes into the second half and the Tornados were down to 6 players.

The defensive pairing of Katherine and Sophia Baba were now put under constant pressure as Pennington looked to make the most of the opportunity and Layla Ashworth stayed alert throughout to make several crucial saves and maintain the gap. Luckily, Madison Richmond from the U9 Cyclones was on hand to step in and even up the numbers with 10 minutes remaining, providing some solid defensive work alongside Katherine, and Annie moved back into the central midfield position to put the Tornados on the front foot once more. With 5 minutes to go, Olivia won the ball back in the centre circle with only one thing on her mind. Dribbling unchallenged and bearing down on goal, she clinically thumped the ball into the corner once more to earn herself a 'Player of the Match' performance.