The Ladies 2nd XI started the season with very realistic hopes of winning Derbyshire Division 1 this year and it was definitely a season for the team to be proud of! Despite having a lot of new faces in the squad and facing many oppositions with a bare eleven, the first half of the season saw us commanding a very strong presence at the top of the table; remaining undefeated in our ten games played before Christmas. After losing Becca Farndell-Thorne to injury in November, we had to have a bit of a reshuffle and everyone made sure they stepped up their game to compensate; Zoe Ridley comfortably filled our gap at the back alongside myself and Olivia Dale. The strength of Shannon Dillon, Felicity Norcross and Yazmin Ambler in midfield continued to grow week on week and Chloe Logan was a force to be reckoned with wherever and whenever she took to the pitch. Couple this with our scoring sensations Susie Spruce and her prodigy Izzy Ridley, we were looking pretty impressive.

Having completely dominated the majority of our games up to the halfway point of the season, it was primarily a battle between us and Belper 3rd XI for the top spot. Coming up against them in our second game of the New Year, it was clear we had our work cut out for us. At 3-0 down in the final five minutes of the match, we had left it a little late for a comeback however we did manage to score a compensatory goal which softened the blow of our first loss. Fortunately, we found out that Belper had lost to Matlock 2nd XI the week before and this meant that it was still all to play for moving forwards. We refocused our efforts towards rebuilding the hefty goal difference that we had before Christmas and our 13-0 win over Ilkeston 1st XI was a supremely high point for all of us; demonstrating exactly what we were capable of. In a bitter twist of events however, the week after saw our shock defeat to Belper 4th XI at the very bottom of the table. The disappointment we felt at this was brutal but we are not a team to be knocked back easily. We lifted our heads up and got straight back to our winning ways; feeling a lot more relaxed knowing that although the league win was no longer in our control, we could do no worse than second place.

After such an abrupt end to the season, we had to wait a short while for the league to collect and publish the results from the final games played before deciding what would be done about any outstanding matches. It was heart-breaking to learn that we missed out on promotion by one point however, thanks largely to the barricade that was Angela Hughes, we had the best goal difference and considering the effort we put in over the season, we are all supremely proud of what we achieved.