| Date | Sunday 30 January 2011 |
| Match | Hannakins v Royston Town Ladies |
| Competition | Eastern Region Women's Football League: Division One South |
| Result | Drew 4-4 |
| Royston Scorers | Pinner, Davidson, Probert, Brindle |
In one of the games of the season Royston produced a storming second half performance to snatch a dramatic late equaliser as reward for their long journey into Essex.
The game started badly for the visitors when after only 2 minutes skipper Gemma Barlow was harshly penalised for handball and the hosts scored from the free kick. Hannakins went further ahead on 15 minutes and seemed to have the game sewn up as they caught out Town’s defence to go 3-0 up at the interval. However it was hardly a true reflection of the first half with Royston producing some excellent passing football, particularly down the right where Hannah Mardell and Marie Miller linked up well with Jenny Probert up front who was always a threat.
Within 5 minutes of the restart Eve Brindle produced a swashbuckling run from midfield before slipping the ball to Sharon Pinner who made no mistake. Ten minutes later Miller produced a sliderule pass to Probert whose shot was too much for the host keeper to hold and Lucy Davidson tapped in Royston’s second. Hannakins had no real answer to Town’s flowing football it was no surprise when Probert once again beat the defence only to be crudely chopped down in the penalty area. Probert sent the keeper the wrong way for a deserved Town equaliser.
With Royston looking for the winner, Hannakins began to find more space and it took a couple of crunching tackles from Barlow and her central defender partner Wendy Webster to stem the flow. With ten minutes left the hosts were once again lucky to be awarded a free kick in the edge of area, which keeper Jemma Young could not keep out and it seemed that all Royston’s hard work to get back into the game had been to no avail. However, Town kept their attacking play going and when the ball was delivered into the box Brindle volleyed home to make it 4-4.
Town’s manager Steve Buchannan commented after the game “At half time we looked dead and buried and all the players were very down but they showed what team work and spirit can produce and you’d have to go a long way to see a better second half performance. I’m very proud of them all”.
