Chatham Town Women will be looking to get back to winning ways this weekend as they welcome Cambridge United Women to the Bauvill on Sunday afternoon in the FA Women’s National League. 

For boss Keith Boanas, he knows that his side always face a tough test against Cambridge as the Chats look to recover from last weekend’s narrow defeat in the League Cup to Hashtag United women who play in the top division of the National League. 

“It was the proverbial game of two halves,” Boanas told us reflecting on Sundays 2-1 defeat.  

“Really disappointing and frustrating first half, we don’t know what went wrong but I am looking at myself for it as I made changes and decisions to give people opportunity – not going to blame any individual changes that I made but we looked unbalanced.  

“We cannot put our finger on it but there was a drastic change second half, but it took a little bit of shouting and cajoling at half time to which the girls responded but it was a frustrating afternoon. We didn’t test the young keeper enough, even the shots we did have where we would call straight at her and easy to deal with – we weren’t ruthless enough again!” 

Despite the defeat, the Chats can still qualify for the knockout stages of the competition if they beat Billericay Town in Essex at the end of September in the groups final game. 

And so, to Sunday and the first of two big league games for the Chats.  

“They are absolutely massive,” the manager admitted. “We always have tough games against Cambridge. We know that they’ve had a change of personnel and have started quite brightly – they’ve signed a few from Norwich who were promoted last year as the coach at Cambridge now was at Norwich last year. 

“They really have reset and have full-time staff. It’s one of the bread-and-butter games for us undoubtedly and that has to be our primary target this year for sure.” 

“We have had a good long hard week in training and with luck we may get a few of the missing back at the weekend certainly from holiday – Ellie Jeffkins for one. Hope Thompson won’t be unfortunately – she would have started last weekend but because she did so well in her A levels, her dad paid for her to go on holiday! She was gutted as she’s been playing well recently.” 

“”I am going to have my work cut out – after last week, one or two of them have to look at themselves and ask if they did enough certainly in the first half. They all lifted it second half – it’s going to be a tough week and in training been looking for them to really apply themselves completely.”