lofcwomen.com

Thu 3 Oct 2024

Having suffered a 1:0 defeat last Sunday in our opening league match at the hands of a very strong Camden Town side, this Sunday's visitors arrive also in good form, they've played 2 - won 2. We extend a welcome to Hammersmith Women FC, one of the most active, financially secure and formidable clubs in the Premier League.
It isn't easy to judge their early form because one of their two games was an 11:0 annihilation of Headstone Manor (who have since folded their entire club - according to their own social media pages) but the other was a fine 3:2 victory over newly promoted and League Cup holders - South London Firsts. That's a big scalp, South London had beaten Brentford, Luton Town and our nemesis from last week - Camden Town. That puts Hammersmith every bit as strong at Camden and we know how tough they were. It looks like another difficult battle to come, typical of the Greater London Women's Football League Premier division.
Hammersmith finished mid-table last season with a record of: Pos 6th - P.18 - W.7 - D.5 - L.6 - GD.+1 - Pts.26. For them, the second half of the season saw a significant improvement. They have been busy with recruitment during the close season and the early signs suggest they are stronger than before. Last season's top scorer, Lashan Millwood (17 goals) has remained at the club although is yet to hit the net this term, team-mate Madeleine Hills already has five to her name.

We first played 'Hammers' (not WHU! The other Hammers) on 11th Feb 2024 which was in the middle of our Feb-to-March mini slump during which time we lost three games and drew one. That was the period which effectively cost us the Premier league title. That first meeting ended in a 2:1 victory for the west Londoners who were 2:0 up at half time. A second half fightback by the Os reduced the arrears but the points went to Hammersmith.
The teams were drawn to play in the league cup on 3rd March, again in west London. This time the record was put straight by a commanding 3:0 victory for the E10 girls. A first half brace by Grace Collins-Edwards plus a late score by Leanne Bates was enough for Orient to go into the hat for the next round.
In the interests of removing doubt, the return league match at Myrak park was played on 28th April where a rampant Orient ran up a 5:1 victory with two goals from Liliana Almeida and one each from Ebony Heath, Chloe Tabor and Sophie Tabor. Sadly, by this time, the league title was out of our hands.

The youth girls' teams are both in action this Saturday 5th October.
Leyton Orient Under 16 girls play in group 13 of the Junior Premier League. Saturday's opponents are Hutton FC who are currently two points behind second placed O's youngsters with both sides having played four league games so far. The matches are played at the sports ground of the Roding Valley High School, a couple of minutes walk from Loughton Central Line. Matches usually start at 10.00am.
Orient's Under 18 girls play in group 7 of the Junior Premier League. On Saturday, they travel to Parsloes Park for a midday kick-off against West Ham Utd. The Hammers have won their only two games played so far and sit second in the league, three points behind Haringey but with two games in hand. It's always nice to win against our neighbours, just like the under 16 girls did recently, however this will be a tall order as our girls go into the game with a W.1 - D.1 - L.1 record.

There are three other league matches booked for Sunday's Premier League programme: Camden & Islington Utd (CandI) entertain Brentford 'B', South London Firsts take on nearby Tooting Bec for league points and local bragging rights, Luton Town Res will host Comets WFC. The best we can hope for by taking three points from Hammersmith will be to 'climb' from 9th to 8th assuming Brentford fail to win at CandI.

For those who can't make the game at the Myrak ground at Buckhurst Hill on Sunday (it's a 2pm kick off), lofcwomen.com will be broadcasting our regular live-text updates service. Starting at 1:45 PM, we will bring you all the team news, minute by minute updates from the match plus our man-at-the-match Larry's view on how things are going on the pitch. The red light will go green when we go live. The page sits on our website so there's no need to log in to anything, there are no cookies and the page automatically updates itself so you won't need to refresh your browser to see the latest updates.
The live-text updates page for the Hammersmith game is already posted but will remain inactive until about 15-20 minutes before kick-off. You can find it at Hammersmith Live Text Page.

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