After a six-week break over Christmas, Gillingham Ladies got off to a great start for 2008 with a classy 2-1 win over Northampton Town. Darren Keating's ladies set their stall out from the start and went about trying to dismantle their opposition by creating a number of early chances.

The first chance came on two minutes when Kylie Overton climbed highest to head over a dangerous corner, while Jac Fiddyment had her shot well saved by the keeper on 10 minutes. Indeed the Gills ladies kept the pressure on for most of the half, only letting Northampton apply a small amount of pressure on the half-hour mark when a series of corners caused some problems with Donna Harris forced into her first save when she had to get down quickly to deny a well taken drive.

However, the pressure was only momentary as the Gills took the lead just before the break. A superb pass from Broad picked out Jac Fiddyment, who was able to turn sharply inside the box and unleash a brilliant shot into the top corner.

As the teams started out for the second half it seemed that a 1-0 lead was going to be rather slight as Northampton came out a changed side. They pushed the Gills back into their own half but, largely thanks to a fantastic Donna Harris save, the lead was kept intact. Indeed, Northampton were to find their efforts fruitless when, from a free-kick, Fiddyment controlled the ball delightfully, looked up and lobbed the keeper in a fashion that is testament to her form to make it 2-0. Some may have said that is was against the run of the play however, with a finish like that, they could have no complaints about the quality of the goal.

Northampton did get a goal back on 62 minutes when a long ball over the top split the Gills defence led to a speculative strike, which managed to squeeze between Harris' outstretched hand and the bar 2-1. A flurry of Northampton attacking play soon followed and the defence had to dig deep to keep them out but, after nine minutes of extra time played, the referee blew his whistle to mark the first three points of the new year.

 Gills boss Darren Keating was delighted by the result:

"We have had a long break from the League and it is difficult to ask players to come back and find the kind of form that they were in last year but, from today's performance, you would not have guessed we had had a break. I could not ask more from them in terms of effort and commitment.

The girls were great today and, if you look at it over 90 minutes, we definitely deserved to win the game. Jac's (Fiddyment) goal was a great finish and she is a key player to our success so if she can keep banging them in then we will soon be right up the table. "

The Teams

Gillingham - 1. Harris (7); 2. Judd(7), 3 Seath(7), 4. Broad(8), 18. Overton(7), 6. Kay(7), 7. Lyon(8), 8. Ashton-Jones(9), 9. Fiddyment(8), 17. Phillips(8), 11. Ridge(8)

Subsitutes - 12. McCormack(/), 5. Reynolds(/), 16.Goodall(6), 19. Flack(6)

Northampton - 1.Milenkovic(6); 2. Cave(6), 3. Gallacchi(6), 4. Keen(6), 5. Smith(6), 6. Sutherland(6), 7. Christie(6), 8.Bateman(7), 10. Porter(8), 9. Gale(6) 11. Robson(7)

Substitutes. - 16. Holland(6)

Gillingham -14 Northampton 6

Offsides:

Gillingham- 5 Northampton - 9

Cautions:     

Gillingham -  0  Northampton- 0

Corners:       

Gillingham - 6 Northampton - 9

Played at:   Woodstock Park F.C.

Kick Off Time: 14.00 PM.