On a crisp November evening, Soton’s sportiest girls loaded onto the minibus (expertly driven by Miss Smith, who had the biggest bus on the M3).  Although arriving with plenty of time, silly captain Fairhurst forgot the hats (which unfortunately was not the last thing forgotten over the course of the match).

After a quick warm-up and some wise words from the coach and captain, the girls were ready to go. The girls started strong, with some lovely passes and foul taking against the other team. We then won a penalty against Surrey, but missed. However, eager Miss Neighbour after a beautiful drive threw one into the back of the net scoring the first goal of the match.  Unfortunately, a mere 20 seconds later Surrey felt left out, scoring and settling the score.

Not dissuaded by this, the girls started strong in the second quarter setting up a beautiful man up when a Surrey player was sent out – with Miss Bugnar sailing the ball into the top corner. Southampton were on a roll, and another quickly followed this beautiful goal from the speedy Miss West. The ball was passed up and down the pool, with some spectacular saves from Miss Townsend and great defence from the girls. However, disaster struck when everyone was speedily swimming back on the counterattack and Miss Neighbour got accidentally bumped in the head by one of our own team players – sending her out to recover. Thrown by this loss, Miss Smith gave away a penalty. Despite Trinity’s best egg beating, the ball whizzed past her into the net. Eager not to let Surrey have the final goal of the quarter – speedy Miss West sprinted past all the Surrey girls and scored a beautiful goal. Leaving the goal line at 2-4 to Southampton.

At half-time we inspected the tiger-like scratch marks on many of our players – as the Surrey refs had forgotten to do a nail check – and somehow did not spot the talons on some of the Surrey girls.

Excited for the second half, Soton’s finest continued to play an excellent match – Trinity then saved a goal by batting the ball out and away giving a corner. Now our lovely Miss Townsend had not given away a corner before and thought the Surrey refs were sending her out of the pool for in her words being a ‘bad dog’. After some reassurance and some signalling, the corner was set up. After all this confusion, Surrey managed to slip a goal in. The girls kept swimming on, counter after counter after counter and started to get a bit tired. Then one of our lovely freshers Miss Kennedy – using all her strength and skills polished in Murder ball training drills, popped both hands on her attacker sending her straight under the water and earning Miss Kennedy a Major foul. Feeling left out, one of the girls from Surrey decided to get excluded too soon after. Our Muscle Mummy was then a bit too strong in pit getting excluded a minute later – conceding another goal to Surrey. This left the 3rd quarter at a tense draw 4-4.

Neighbour valiantly got back into the pool for the final quarter – raising everyone’s morale – and proving her goal scoring excellence scored another fantastic goal! Surrey was obviously very upset by this and scored two further goals. Then in the final minute, Miss Smith and Miss Fairhurst were sprinting up the pool leaving their defenders in the dust. Miss Smith made an excellent pass to Miss Fairhurst, who then took a shot at the goal – everyone held their breath as the ball passed behind the goal line, but alas no goal was awarded. The final buzzer sounded and despite some great water polo from Southampton, Surrey narrowly snatched victory 6-5. 

We then had a lovely chat with the Surrey girls and packed up to go home to sunny Soton – being serenaded by tuneful solos from the freshers all the way home. Now, this was another instant of Miss Fairhurst’s forgetting – as in the excitement of the end of the match also managed to leave her keys behind at the Surrey pool – leaving cause for a cognitive assessment follow-up.

The girls played very well all in all – with some excellent defence, some great goals and wonderful saves!

MVP: Danny Neighbour for some beautiful goals and soldiering on!

Dick of the Day: Eleanna Fairhurst for not only forgetting the hats but also her keys

Written by Eleanna Fairhurst

Goals/Majors

Trinity Townsend 0/0

Danny Neighbour 2/0

Eleanna Fairhurst 0/0

Katie Smith 0/1

Bracken Kennedy 0/1

Jess Parkin 0/0

Ella Evans 0/0

Sam Woolhouse-Read 0/0

Iris Bugnar 1/1

Carmen West 2/0

Nuria Martín Jiménez 0/0