A blog of two halves

Girls outdo the boys

Anything you can do, we can do better, whistled Chelsea Ladies while demolishing Bristol City 6-0 at Kingsmeadow… the day after the boys beat Stoke 4-0 away.

25 September 2017
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An Alvaro Morata hat trick gave a confidence boost to this maturing talent. PICTURE: GETTY IMAGES

Anything you can do, we can do better, whistled Chelsea Ladies while demolishing Bristol City 6-0 at Kingsmeadow… the day after the boys beat Stoke 4-0 away.

Hard to say which is more impressive; the Ladies breezing to glory without six of their strongest players, or the men making it look easy at the daunting Britannia.

An Alvaro Morata hat trick gave a confidence boost to this maturing talent, although the Potters lacked key players – partly thanks to Chelsea's cunning tactic of disruption via ownership, in this instance ineligible loanee Kurt Zouma.

For the Ladies, a turbulent week which saw England's women's coach dismissed ended on a high.

Chelsea Ladies manager Emma Hayes deftly deflected press inquiries about becoming Mark Sampson's successor ("I'm looking forward to my future with Chelsea Football Club") before applauding a "superb performance" from a team which included two debutantes.

One, Swedish defender Magdalena Eriksson, nodded home from a corner at the near post, which should have been guarded by her opposite number.

Maren Mjelde netted two, while the summer addition of lofty Norwegian defender Maria Thorisdottir means there's a Scandinavian feel to the team.

While Chelsea's men fly back from Madrid to face Manchester City at the Bridge, Chelsea Ladies have an eye-catching clash with Bayern Munich in the Women's Champions League at Kingsmeadow next Wednesday. Yes, Chelsea v Bayern for £6.

The views expressed in this blog are those of the author and unless specifically stated are not necessarily those of Hammersmith & Fulham Council.

Tim Harrison

Tim is our Chelsea FC blogger.

He also writes our Shepherds Bush Cricket Club match reports during the football close season.

Tim has been writing Chelsea match reports since the late 1980s for newspapers and, more recently, websites.

When he first reported on the Blues, the press box was a metal cage suspended over the lip of the old west stand - and you reached it via a precarious walkway over the heads of the fans.

But he has been a Chelsea fan since his father took an excited seven-year-old to watch Chelsea v Manchester United in the mid 1960s... and covered his ears every time the chanting got too ripe.

In July 2005 he wrote The Rough Guide to Chelsea, published by Penguin, which sold 15,000 copies.

His favourite player of all time is Charlie Cooke, the mazy winger who lit up Chelsea's left wing in the 60s and 70s.

When he isn't watching the Blues, Tim acts, paints, writes and researches local history.

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