Saints 4-0 Ipswich

• St Marys
• 06/09/2025
• Attendance: 3,896
• Goals:
  • Saints 4
    • Primus 9'
    • Goddard 29'
    • Bashford 45'+2, 57'
  • Ipswich 0

I felt really disconnected from football at the end of last season. I guess that’s not surprising after disappointing seasons for both the women’s and men’s teams, the pointlessness of the Club World Cup (which I didn’t watch) and FIFA’s pandering to Trump and all the other nonsense that now comes with top-flight football. I haven’t felt any connection to the England men’s team for many years now, and I was losing any sort of connection to men’s football altogether. However, I really enjoyed the Women’s Euros; the whole atmosphere around the women’s game is so much better and more positive. The England team may have made hard work of some of the games, but their determination, togetherness and will to win saw them through. It reminded me of why football has been such a big part of my life for as long as I can remember.

Having said that, I did feel a little disappointed seeing the players walking out at St Mary’s. But, due to changing circumstances, we haven’t got season tickets for the Women’s team this season. We will go to some games when we can, and it looks like most, if not all, of their games will be available on YouTube.

Ipswich had ex-Saints Paige Peake and Rianna Dean starting for them; the latter is a player we missed last season when she was out injured. Saints have a pretty new team with only Fran Stenson, Megan Collette, Chloe Peplow and Tara Bourne starting from last season’s squad. New captain Atlanta Primus spent last season on loan at Charlton.

Saints started well, and with less than three minutes on the clock, Ellie Brazil chased a ball down the wing, beat the keeper to it and fed it back to Michaela McAlonie, who forced the keeper into a good save, pushing the ball out for a corner. A couple of minutes later, Brazil was at it again. Primus played her in, but her good shot just went past the far post.

Saints only had to wait four more minutes, though. Ipswich attacked, Saints intercepted, then a long ball down the wing from her own penalty area, by Amy Goddard, saw Brazil outpace Peake to take it into the area. She then, with two defenders around her, held it up before feeding Primus, who smashed it into the top corner.

Saints looked like a better, more balanced team than they did last season, full of attacking intent. The next time they went forward, Peplow was fouled about 30 metres out and Tara Bourne hit the crossbar from the free kick. On half an hour, the new signing, but a former Saints academy player, Goddard, scored from a corner which was floated in by Bourne. It was a fine header as she rose above everyone else in the penalty area.

Saints were looking dangerous every time they went forward, while Ipswich struggled to make any progress at all, and, in added-on time, Mary Bashford scored from another corner, heading in at the near post.

The second half started as the first had ended, with Saints pushing forward. In under 15 minutes, a scramble in the Ipswich area after another Saints corner saw the ball go back out to Bourne. She lofted the ball back into the area, and it evaded everyone and fell to Primus at the back post. She smashed a shot in, which the keeper could only push up into the air, and as it dropped, Bashford was there to poke it home at the post. The commentator said Bashford had “nodded home, with her boot.”

The intensity dropped a bit after Saints went 4-0 up, and both sides looked a little sloppy at times. But Ipswich were demoralised and started falling over quite a bit, and Saints made a host of changes, and with all the new signings, it was nice to see youngster Issy Watts get a run out late on.

The crowd was 3,896