Women aim to continue winning start

South Shields Women look to stay top of the league this Sunday when they travel to Teesside to face Redcar Town (2pm kick-off).

Matt Gatiss’ side were 4-0 winners at Hull at the weekend following a blistering final 10 minutes which saw Becca Emery, Becki McMahon and Ebony Longstaff add to Sophie Greener’s opener just before the break.

And they will be hoping to continue their strong start against a Redcar side who suffered a 3-1 defeat at home against Wallsend BC last time out.

The Mariners won last season’s equivalent fixture back in March, when Eve Gatens grabbed a brace while Jen Wootten got one in the final minute to give Shields a 3-1 victory.

Matt’s thoughts

“They’re a good team, they’ve been in the league for a long time”, Shields head coach Gatiss said.

“They try to play football the right way. They’ll be another footballing side like ourselves, but the key is that we’re not changing our way.

“We’re going to go out there and implement, enforce, our style onto other teams and see how they react.

“It’s a bigger pitch than we had at Hull (United), which is always good; it’s a high-quality pitch, a class ground.

“It’s a Northern League ground, it’s got that feel to it and we’re looking forward to it.

“It’s relentless: Tuesday/Thursday training, a game Sunday, repeat.

“It’s what we wanted, because pre-season drags on a bit sometimes, and we had a shorter pre-season than others, but it worked out.

“And like I say, maybe the Spennymoor game was a good lesson for us to now then start pressing forward.

“There are going to be bumps in the road, there are times where we have that adversity, but we’ve got to hold it together as a squad and work through it.”

Information for supporters

Kick-off at the Mo Mowlam Memorial Park (TS10 5BW) is at 2pm on Sunday.

Entry is free and all supporters are welcome to head along and cheer the lasses on.