Flip through the latest issue of Gulf Weekly.
The GulfWeekly/Citroen-sponsored Ladies League has reached the halfway stage of the season with Arsenal Ladies leading the way in the First Division and Seef Dental heading Division 2 and looking odds-on to win promotion.
A good example of the action they will face if they move up could be seen when the top division’s leading teams played each other, with Arsenal Ladies extending their unbeaten run by defeating Joga TFA 2-0.
Both teams were missing key players and chances were few and far between. The game was settled with two second half goals by Reema Al Qassab and Sam Rule, the latter being a decisive header from a Melissa Gut long throw-in.
In the other top-tier encounter, the Arsenal U21 team narrowly defeated the Eastern Flames by a Teddy Walton goal. Picking up a great through ball from Eleni Tsappis , she beat her defender and calmly slotted the ball home.
On Saturday, while 40 under-12 girls from Bahrain and Saudi were playing in friendly matches, League leaders Seef Dental took on the Arsenal U18s and the Arsenal Gunners faced the girls from RCSI.
Seef, with a draw and three wins this season in the league, suffered their first defeat due to a gritty show by the U18s.
Latifa Al Khalifa, Darya Vyshegorodskaya and Theodora Walton scored for the youngsters, and a reply from Terry Stevens means that the girls have closed the gap at the top to five points, with two games in hand.
The Arsenal Gunners recorded their first win in the Ladies League, and at the same time recorded the youngest ever goalscorers. The holder of the record, Kia Hanahoe, who scored her first league goal when she was 12, notched two goals, but she was surpassed by 11-year-old Gabby Schultz in the 23rd and 27th minutes.
However, Gabby’s place in the record books lasted just nine minutes, by which time 10-year-old Maggie Stephens fired home a brace!
The seventh score for the Gunners was by Anika Vallejo, and the lone goal for RCSI by Safia Mohamed. Gunners coach Andy Collins said: “We were delighted by the performance of the Gunners. The team was formed to give our girls some match play as a lot of them are beginners and playing games is the best way to learn.”
