Sunday 14th January 2024 ko 13:00

FA Women’s Cup 4th Round

SUNDERLAND AFC WOMEN 0

SOUTHAMPTON FC WOMEN 2 (Wilkinson 55 88)

Att 300 at Eppleton Colliery Welfare, Hetton-le-Hole

Entry £10

Once Robyn and I had decided that the trip to watch Carlisle United was going to be 3-day affair, then I knew we’d have no end of alternatives for a game on the Sunday. There was of course the inevitable bending of “It’s on the way home” but I imagine that by now you’ve come to expect that? I mean of course Hetton-le-Hole is en route from Carlisle to Oxford, isn’t it? Just the A69 to negotiate…..

Eppleton Colliery Welfare played in the Northern League from 1929 to their bankruptcy in 2005. The ground as the name would suggest was part of the Miners’ Welfare, now the Hetton Centre situated behind the near goal. The bar is named after Bob Paisley, the Liverpool legend being born in Hetton-Le-Hole.

But this wasn’t just an exercise in ticking off an former Northern League ground. The colliery is now a quarry and the ground is used by the County Durham FA for finals, but is best known for Sunderland using it for women’s and under-23 fixtures. The ground has seen extensive improvements since Eppleton CWFC’s time, just look at the floodlights for example.

As fixtures go there was a lot to like about Sunderland vs Southampton. On a personal level you may remember me watching Brentford Women beat Watford Ladies, for the right to play the visitors who boast England legend Marianne Spacey as Director of Women’s Football. From a Sunderland perspective the club boasted the likes of Jill Scott, Steph Houghton and Lucy Bronze, and in 2010 could and possibly should have been a founder member of the Women’s Super League- Manchester City were given the nod.

Back in the here and now both sides are in the top half of the second tier Women’s Championship, but judging by the first half-an-hour of this game they were a little too well matched. It was cold, there was a breeze and there was little or nothing to stir the senses. In the end the difference between the two sides was the excellence of Milly Mott in the Southampton defence and the sharp shooting of Katie Wilkinson- a through ball and a smart cross were all she needed to win her team the tie.

Those goals earned Southampton a home tie against Manchester United, and certainly the players we bumped into on the way home at Leicester Forest East Services seemed elated at the result. They certainly travelled a fair old distance for that win, in fact it was even further than we did!