Dalton’s dream teams: Simply the best

Part two of Sent Her Forward’s look back at the players who have most impressed and made me smile in best part of six years of reporting on women’s football

Deanna Cooper (centre) and Jay Blackie (right), two of the finest footballers I’ve seen, make both my first XIs (Photo: Kevin Richards)

I must have seen at least a dozen of those who took part in this summer’s Women’s World Cup in live club games.

Yet my selections for my Best Ever Team represent a footballing universe far broader than the game’s top global competition – or even just the Women’s Super League.

Advertisements

Dalton’s dream teams: A few of my favourite things

A walk down Memory Lane as Sent Her Forward recalls some of the finest players I’ve had the privilege of watching

Leigh Farley scored the first goal I ever saw live in women’s football – but she did far more than that (Photo: Dave Burt)

It’s almost seven years since I began watching women’s football – and nearly six since I started reporting on it on Sent Her Forward.

Time for a list or two, I think.

Goal glut reveals gulf between Super League hopefuls and rest of Premier League

Round-up of today’s Premier League action

Portsmouth gained revenge for their defeat at Lewes earlier in the season (Photo: James Prickett)

The gulf between the ambitious Premier League sides still craving a Super League future and the rest was illustrated emphatically in today’s crazy scores in the league’s Southern division.

Half the division in with a chance of a tilt at the Super League

Ultimate target: Sheffield FC broke the hearts of Premier League Southern champions Portsmouth with an injury-time win in the Super League play-off (Photo: Jordan Hampton)

After a truly compelling Premier League season, in which once again the title was determined on the final day, the top clubs from the southern winter pyramid are about to go into battle in a campaign that will surely be at least as intensive.

Premier League proves its value after door to Super League is opened

Part one of Sent Her Forward’s review of the season – starting with the FAW Premier League

A season to remember: (clockwise) Portsmouth win the league, Brighton come so close, Gillingham celebrations are rare but Lewes consolidate (Photos: Jordan Hampton/Paul Hazlewood/BHA/Julian Hart/James Boyes)

There’s nothing like a bit of incentive to bring out the best in sportsmen and women.

In pictures: some of the weekend highlights around the South

Sent Her Forward photo special

Long Lane Reserves are a win away from a perfect season (Photo: Julie Hoare)

This website is fortunate to be supported by like-minded people keen to help the development of women’s and girls’ football – and that includes photographers, professional and amateur, who are kind enough to allow me to use some of their work to illuminate my reports, features and analyses with their pictures.

Here to help tell the latest news of clubs in the area, is a selection of some of the photos.

Another Kent County Cup triumph – but a new dawn for Gillingham

Kent Women’s Cup final: Gillingham 5-3 London Corinthians

Gillingham’s fourth successive County cup triumph is a competition record (Photo: Kent FA)

Gillingham, the biggest women’s club in Kent, won the county cup – as has become their custom – for a record fourth time in a row. But their victory over gallant London Corinthians in last night’s final at Maidstone United heralds the start of a new era rather than an extension of the old.