Women’s football: Charlton Athletic stay at foot of Championship table after 2-1 defeat to Lewes

BY MITUL SAMJI

Charlton remain bottom of the FA Women’s Championship as first-half goals from Megan Mackey and Sammy Quayle were enough to earn Lewes a 2-1 win.

Lois Heuchan netted for the Addicks, who produced a strong fightback in the second half.

Lewes started the brighter, with Sophie O’Rourke fouled inside the box but the referee waved away appeals.

The hosts continued to look to create and the 19-year-old came close to open the scoring as her looping effort flew over the bar.

Sophie O’Rourke delivered a fine cross into the box and found captain Rhian Cleverly but her close-range effort went straight at visiting keeper Eartha Cumings as well as the rebound.

It took Charlton a full half-hour to fashion a half-chance when Charlotte Gurr picked Jessica King out inside the box and her effort went wide.

The hosts hit the front when Ellie Leeks’ free-kick fell to Mackey, who slotted the ball into the bottom corner to earn a deserved lead.

Simon Parker’s side doubled their advantage before half-time through Quayle, who burst into the Charlton box and poked a low effort past Cumings.

Lewes began the second half in similar fashion to the way they ended the first and almost claimed their third goal before the hour after some great play between O’Rourke and Paula Howells played in Simran Jhamat but her low-effort went narrowly wide.

The visitors managed to get a goal back through Heuchan, who chipped the ball over Tatiana Saunders to set up a nervy end to the game.

Charlton almost equalised when Ella Rutherford’s long-range effort was parried away by the Lewes keeper and past King, who could have scored the rebound.

The Addicks mounted further pressure as they earned a free-kick on the edge of the box – Saunders spilled Clifford’s free-kick, but the ball fell to a defender to clear and Lewes saw out the victory.

Charlton’s Jessica King said: “In the first half, we weren’t firing on all cylinders and Lewes scored two goals in that period, so it ended up being a difficult task for us in the second half to try and come back into the game.

“Going 2-0 down is a dangerous scoreline to go in at half-time. We knew that we could get back into the game because we already created a few chances but weren’t good enough, so we had to step up. We made a few changes and made a difference.

“We started to create chances in the second half and Lewes were under pressure. We could see the momentum shifting and didn’t take our chances to get something out of this game.

“Fans play a big part of football and it was nice to have people at the game, although they’re not our fans. They brought back the match and stadium atmosphere so hopefully we can gradually get closer to normality.

“We have to perform for 90 minutes or at least more than 30 minutes. If we want to win games, at the end of the day, we need to take our chances and put our bodies on the line – we can’t let someone dribble past four of our players and expect to win the game. We need to fix it in the next game.”

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