Report Author: Antonia Neild

Game: Southampton Women vs Imperial college London

Location: Ethos sports centre

Score: 13-6

Date: 25/2/23

The time was 1:12pm. The SUWPC girls were set to be meeting at 1.30pm for their journey into London. One sad goalkeeper was sat in her car, trying to turn it on after running the battery dead. All she wanted to do was eat her Subway. After a sorry attempt to start the car herself by rolling it down the car park of Portswood’s Iceland, a lovely Southampton family came to aid to push it into life. This was joined by the smug honk of a van donning both Jordan and Magill, who had come to laugh at Antonia’s ineptitude through their front window. After the panic of being late to pick up her own team for a match, the best of girls headed off for their second match against Imperial College London. But the drama was far from done…

Upon arriving in London, it dawned on the team that there was no parking to be found near the pool, or anywhere else in the centre of London. After circling for some time, they found themselves in the Iranian Islamic Embassy for optimal parking, until they found out it was £37 for two hours. Clearly diplomatic negotiations haven’t reached the carpark yet. It took another circle of the swimming pool and the help of a nice parking attendant to find some free real estate for our cars, conveniently right next to an ice cream van. Lucia jumped on this opportunity, tossing aside her Italian ice cream heritage in favour of the classic Mr Whippy (arguably the best ice cream worldwide). The girls then proceeded to the pool where they were made to pack like sardines outside the entrance barrier so they could all pile through at once. For an engineering university, the facilities were lacking simple things, like functioning gates.

After a warmup and wise words from captain Katie the girls lined up for what was going to be one of the harder matches played this season. With no coach poolside, it was up to Antonia to call for substitutes off the bench, but this message wasn’t made apparent to the whole team who took it upon themselves to sub in and out of the pool at various times. This surprisingly didn’t cause any problems however, as the teams excellent communication was put to good use.  The match started slowly for Southampton as Imperial landed three goals in the first quarter. This fuelled the girls however, as Magill managed to win a major from Imperial. This allowed for a lovely last-minute goal from Ratledge. Quarter 1 ended 3-1.

After a quick team talk to rouse everyone into action by Captain Magill, Ratledge scored her second goal of the match. Another two goals were scored by Imperial, in which both occasions the ref failed to call the hat numbers, resulting in Antonia to have to call the hat numbers on his behalf of a team she didn’t know (should have been credited as second ref really). Magill acted upon Imperial slacking and won a further three majors against them. Southampton were able to score a few more man-ups, proving that endless drills really do work. Not enough unfortunately, as the first half ended 7-4.

This score line didn’t sit well with el capitan. In frustration with the feistiness of Imperial, Magill informed the girls that a perfectly OK way to hold the girls was not by their costumes but be by their crotch, after she herself had been (in the words of the opposition) “kicked in the vajayjay”. After the questionable tactics discussed in the team talk, the girls lined up for their third quarter. This proved to be the most frustrating quarter of the match. The defensive tactics had improved but Imperial were, in the words of Elise, “slippery f*ckers”. They slipped past and approached Antonia, underestimating the sheer length of her monkey arms, and shot straight at them. On getting the rebound they shot once more which was deflected again and for a third time. Antonia was on fire. Imperial then proceeded to put three more past her. Amongst the endless send outs from Magill a penalty was given to Southampton, taken by Tsouka, which rocketed just above the goal. Unhappy with the reffing that had been going on, Elise acted by yelling “oi ref!” repeatedly after being drowned by one girl. Luckily the ref was too distracted by the yelling of our captain at Jaz, who was bored of playing and was having a lovely chat with her defender in the pit. Imperial broke away and raced up to other end to Antonia, who saved it and proceeded to stare down the attacker who unsuccessfully went for the ball in Antonia’s hands. The third quarter ended 11-5 to Imperial.

The final quarter went by quickly. The combination of Magill flipping people and a whistle happy ref led to many more kickouts and meant two Imperial players were wrapped. Jealous of them getting a rest on the side, Iris proceeded to join in the fun and get herself the only major and penalty against our team. Silly fresher. Luckily it missed and the counter was on, with the girls swimming up the pool, the ball was passed up the wing to Katie Smith. A Katie/Katie link up led to the captain’s final goal of the game. A couple more goals later, the game ended 13-6. It had been an eventful match . Lucia had been kicked in the face and Magill argued with an Imperial player who claimed she was “nowhere near her” whilst her legs were wrapped around our captain’s waist. Not to mention the ref’s inability to call hat numbers. We ended on a high note with three cheers called for our captain, which imperial saw as a challenge and quickly imitated. The girls headed out and prepared for the excitement that was the Mario Kart re-enactment between Antonia and Katie in a race out of central London. A very respectable end to the BUCS league.

Man of the Match: Katie Magill for winning 8 majors and getting two girls wrapped (lol).

Dick of the Day: Iris for getting the only major for our team (and being happy about it after).

Names – Goals/Majors

Antonia Neild – 0/0

Katie Smith – 0/0

Jessica Grace – 0/0

Jasmine Brown – 0/0

Lucia Ciardo – 0/0

Elise Roberts – 0/0

Charlotte Ratledge – 2/0

Iris Bugnar – 0/1

Katie Magill – 4/0

Natalia Tsouka – 0/0