City lift Premier League title
Glasgow City lifted the Premier League title for a third season in a row with a 4-1 win over Hibernian in Edinburgh.
The Glasgow side will now be Scotland’s representatives once more in next summer’s UEFA Women’s Champions League, the ultimate prize for winning the League. It has been an incredible season for City yet again. Following on from last year’s treble winning season, the Glasgow side have once more won everything in their path to completely dominate the Scottish game.
In gale force winds, today’s match was played under difficult circumstances, and despite dominating territorially for the entire match, City went in at half time 1-1. The home side took the lead when a long ball was played over the City defence and mix-up at the back allowed the Hibs striker in for an easy goal.
City were however not deterred and continued to the pile pressure on the Hibernian defence, eventually taking the lead through striker Katharina Lindner. After a set-piece Rachel Corsie played in Lindner and the German born striker curled her effort into the top corner to eventually beat Shannon Lynn in the Hibs net, who had been in fine form.
In the second half, with the wind behind them now, City continued to dominate the match with Hibernian struggling at times to relieve the pressure on their goal. City did however make the breakthrough scoring directly from a corner kick from Emma Fernon twenty minutes after the restart.
Rachel Corsie then put the game beyond doubt, finishing
with ease in the six yard box after another City set-piece.
Striker Suzanne Malone scored number four after some
great play involving Lindner and Leanne Ross, saw Lindner
set-up Malone to finish inside the penalty area.
All in all, Hibernian battled hard and had the cross bar to thank on three occasions to keep the score down. The defended resolutely for ninety minutes, but in the end could not prevent City finishing with a comfortable victory and the League Championship in their hands.
City Manager Peter Caulfield was understandably delighted.
He said, “In terms of today’s game, I thought we thoroughly deserved our victory. We performed better in the second half than the first and I was delighted with the number of chances we created, we just could have done better with them at times. To win the league having won every single match so far this season is phenomenal. The girls have really excelled themselves yet again and they should enjoy this moment. We still have Boroughmuir to play, so the season is not over and we will make sure we are prepared as we want to finish with the perfect season and another win. However, the title is secured and it is a tremendous achievement and I feel we are only getting stronger. We have a number of excellent young players coming through and injury hampered them having an impact this season, but they will be with us for the start of the new campaign in March and it is very exciting times to be part of this club.”
Pictures by Glasgow City Club Photographer Lorraine Hill.
22.11.09
