The Guardian - * England 4-0 Northern Ireland
* Mead 64 74 78, England 72
The post-match lap of honour was lengthy, the smiles were broad. Thanks to Beth Mead the second-half super sub, England’s perfect qualifying record for the 2023 World Cup endures. Until Mead arrived, taking mere seconds to score the first goal of a hat-trick, Northern Ireland, for whom goalkeeper Jackie Burns had been outstanding, looked like denying England on a historic day for the women’s national team.
England firing blanks against inferior opposition might have added a sense of anticlimax to the first competitive women’s international in Wembley’s 98-year history as the national stadium. A combination of a continuing pandemic, ticket prices and a full programme of Premier League and Football League action had led to an attendance of 23,225, way short of the 77,768 that saw the November 2019 friendly with Germany. Continue reading...
