Pride frequently misfire after breaks in playing and /or training, so the first competitive game in six weeks a late start to the new year made for a potentially tricky fixture for at Moorways on Sunday.

Games between Pride Park and Belper have always featured plenty of goals in the past - in seventeen League and Cup fixtures between the teams since 2014 there had been over 100 goals scored at an average of over six goals per game - and none have ever ended goalless. However, none of the previous games even came close to anything quite like this match which, with sixteen goals scored, resembled basketball as much as football as the teams traded goals. It made for an entertaining game for neutrals, perhaps, but possibly less so for the purists!

There were welcome returns for Steph Eadon after missing the last two games and Ellie-Mae Coleman also returned from injury, Abi Dowell-McGrillan came in for her second game of the season, Katy Sharpe filled in at left back and Molly Boultbee made her debut after signing earlier in the week, but absences through injury and illness still left Pride quite depleted for the opening fixture of 2024.

Pride made the ideal start with a well worked goal after 5 minutes, as Beth Jones headed home from Aimee Healy-Raynor’s pinpoint cross. Jones added a second to start a period in which the teams traded blows basketball-style with five goals scored in nine minutes, in the middle of which Jones completed her hat-trick to put Pride 4-2 up after 23 minutes. There was a period of relative calm - but no shortage of goalmouth action at either end - before Steph Eadon made it 5-2 to Pride, rising to head home Tash Allderidge’s corner just before half-time.

There was no hint of a let up in the second half as Pride made another quick start; Ellie-Mae Coleman and Beth Jones extending Pride’s lead further in the opening six minutes, before Belper pulled one back. As if in retaliation, Jess Page and Aimee Healy-Raynor made it 9-3 within a few minutes, but Belper hit back with their fourth after 68 minutes. Ellie-Mae Coleman put Pride into double figures before Belper pulled two late goals back to make it a remarkable nine second half goals and 10-6 at full time - making a good case for a backboard, hoop and net to be installed in place of the goals!

Although it was a very open game - as the scoreline suggests - there were some very well made and well taken goals by both teams.

With everyone else in Cup action the win consolidates second place for Pride Park, who close the gap on leaders Draycott to 3 points with a game in hand, although Wirksworth and Borrowash each have 3 games in hand on Pride Park.

Pride Park are in cup action next weekend with a visit to Regional League side Sandiacre Town in the 2nd Round of the Cawarden Derbyshire FA Women’s County Plate (ko 13.30)