Well it’s the Duchess’s final match report before like swallows, she flies south; or is that she swallows like she flies? I guess we’ll never know. It would have been marvellous to write a final victorious match report, or even to be able to say we came away from our first trip to SUNNY Bournemouth with a possibly undeserved point; but sadly it was not to be, as the Bandits fell to their first league defeat in almost two years. We last lost in the GFSN in April 2005 against Bristol in the 2004-05 title decider; an undefeated run of 11 league games since then – something we should be very proud of.

It doesn’t make it any easier to stomach that we lost to the better team – we may have some individually more talented players but that counts for nothing if you don’t work as a team, or pass the ball as a team, and that was our undoing in my opinion. We should have gone behind in the first minute but were lucky a Bournemouth forward froze from shock at the ease with which our defence was carved open, when the ball landed at his feet a yard from goal. We hacked the ball clear and almost immediately, Mattie raced on to a through ball to put us a goal up. It never looked like a convincing lead mind you.

We battled hard for 20 minutes or so and soaked up some pressure which was partly down to good play from our opposition and partly down to a one-sided wind. But that’s being uncharitable (just like me as ever). GFC’s equaliser when it came was by any standards, a bit of a peach. Vinnie Fyfield collected the ball just outside right of our penalty box and curled a magnificent shot round Gary’s flailing arm into the top left corner of the goal. I was in line behind him and just had to look on in admiration – it was a fine strike. Shame there was no net to help the visuals. Oh and Steve; before you say anything - I wasn’t close enough to tackle him.

We should have paid attention to that man; I know him of old. He’s a former Stonewall 1st team player and I believe a Gay Games gold medal winner to boot, and if we’d closed him down better all game we might have got a result. As it turned out, he was undoubtedly their match winner. So 1-1, and after an enforced change due to Jason Hall’s injury, we lost another goal as GFC broke down our left and slotted past Gary for 2-1; we looked in trouble. Somehow though we managed to contrive a couple of goals from messy scrambles; firstly an equaliser from Paul Smith and then Scraggy reacting quickly to a fumble from the goalkeeper following a shot from Markey; 3-2 and back in the lead again – still didn’t look convincing though. And so it proved – by half time GFC had pegged us back to 3-3. So not great, but not disastrous, and we had the wind in our favour for the 2nd half. Or we should have had.

A change of ends and a couple of substitutions; Paul W for Ben and Alan for my good self – was that my final farewell in a Bandits shirt I wondered? Lee spoke strongly at the interval about sitting on Vinnie F, the dangerous GFC midfielder, and we agreed to keep tight to him. But he’s a slippery bugger and he turned us too easily, too often; losing his marker early in the 2nd half and running on to lob Gary from about 30 yards; 4-3 GFC. I thought we’d lost the game at that point. GFC were the first team this season to expose our lack of pace – we can’t be beaten for experience in this league but we can be outpaced and they showed it all too often. We weren’t passing the ball well – often mazy runs were coming to nothing and the big hitters of both teams got involved in a “Who’s the best footballer?” contest with handbags and make-up flying everywhere. C’mon guys, it ain’t that important! It’s meant to be a team sport.

About 20 minutes to go Bandits finally managed to get the ball on the floor and started to use the width of the pitch, passing the ball around to feet and looking a bit more threatening. From a forward surge we got the run of the ball and Matt was on hand to turn and beat the GFC keeper; 4-4! And only about 10 minutes to go. Then we pushed the self destruct button. We were lucky to get away with not conceding what I thought was a clear penalty after equalising (not to ignore the shot that Gary parried which was adjudged not to have crossed the line) but the second late tackle on Vinnie F (yes him again) resulted in an obvious award of a spot kick. At this point we picked up another injury and my farewell in a Bandits shirt started with me coming back on to the pitch and watching Vinnie get up to score his hat-trick and win the game for GFC; 5-4.

A couple of fairly tame minutes passed before the ref blew but I think we knew we weren’t coming back again from the moment the penalty went in. I would say 'hit the back of the net' but there weren’t any!

So that’s it then. No more Bandits for me. I guess I should have been sadder, but we didn’t deserve anything from this game despite some great performances from some of our less well known players; Ben Eade had his best game of the season, when he got over some early nerves, and Paul Windsor was an equally adept replacement second half. Paul Smith was as good as ever and I thank him for his big hug at the end – it meant a lot. Thankfully none of you saw me holding back the tears briefly as we gathered for the team photo. I think the point I am trying to make is that ultimately we didn’t play badly, we just got beaten by a better team on the day, or maybe just generally better – but you guys will have to work that one out. Having said that; the league is not over for us. We need some results to go our way, but remember, anyone at the top is capable of beating anyone else, and Bournemouth have to go away to Leicester; not an easy team to beat by any means. I wish you all the very best for the rest of this season and for the future.

And finally thank you for 4 brilliant years in Brighton. This team has meant so much to me and I value the new (and old) friends I have met while I have been here. I hope some of you will make the trip to see me but if not then hopefully it’s London 2008 for my homecoming – surely even you lot can muster a team for that!!! But Sydney beckons and I shall be off before you play your next competitive game – win the cup for me girls, it’s the least you can do! Oh and get some new younger players – you’re all looking past it ;-)

Duchess Dazza! xx