3rd April 2021
After a three-and-a-half month delay, Cheltenham Town Ladies will return to action in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup, as they make the trip to Hampshire tomorrow (April 4, 2pm) to face Portsmouth Women.
The delay in competitive football comes from the government’s national lockdown, which has also seen the FA Women’s National League season fall victim to another curtailing.
Earlier in the week, manager Tom Davies told InsideCTFC that despite the players having not seen each other in person since mid-December, the unity in the squad was fantastic and his side were delighted to welcome football back.
“Everyone is laughing and joking and really excited to see each other. They’re all really looking forward to the game, its brilliant we can get it on and hopefully we can go and enjoy ourselves over there!” He told Danyal Khan.
“They’re going to be well organised. We know that they work really hard at what they do, they have different patterns of play and they can change, so we haven’t put too much focus on them, its been about us and what we think we can do, how we maximum our strengths and give our players the best opportunity to get a result.”
Opposition
Portsmouth Women’s manager, Jay Sadler was “absolutely buzzing” for the return of competitive football, even if it it ends up being just a single fixture for his team.
Pompey Women were in fine form before lockdown temporarily halted play. With five wins from eight in the FA Women’s National League Southern Premier, and 11 league goals from Rebecca Bath, they end the season in third, two points behind Oxford United Women and just three behind league leaders, Watford.
Big wins for them this season include a 7-0 drubbing of Plymouth Argyle, a 3-0 victory over Hounslow and a 4-1 win over MK Dons in what was the club’s last competitive fixture, back as far as December 13, 2020.
Previous Meetings
The two teams have only met once in recent seasons, as Alex Cheal’s Cheltenham Town Ladies head to the south coast for a pre-season friendly in July 2018. Portsmouth would eventually come out on top in a closely competed contest, 3-2.
Match Coverage
For real-time match coverage, follow our twitter page, @CTLadies and watch the action on the the club’s Facebook Live, while also catching score updates on the club’s Instagram story.
Portsmouth will also have a stream on their YouTube page.
