Jersey Bulls Women made the perfect start to their first-ever season in the English football pyramid as they won their first match 7-0.
The islanders thrashed Old Tiffinians at Springfield in South East Counties Women’s Football League Surrey Division One on Sunday.
The result sees them second in the division – which is in the seventh tier of English football – after their opening match, behind Ash United who won their first game 18-1 at home to Guildford Saints.
Leah Morris created history as the first goalscorer from the island in an English league when she gave Bulls an eighth-minute lead as she lobbed the visiting goalkeeper after a poor clearance.
She doubled the tally four minutes later before Holly Sundby and Ella Brennand scored twice in two minutes to put Jersey Bulls 4-0 ahead inside the first 20 minutes.
Anita Tavares made it 5-0 in first-half stoppage time before Sam Silva-Pinto scored a quickfire double early in the second half.
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“We didn’t know what to expect coming into this game, but to play that well, score that many goals was just amazing,” midfielder Morris told BBC Radio Jersey after making a piece of Jersey sport history.
“I just saw the keeper off her line and thought might as well have a shot and went in, I didn’t expect it.
“The coach was telling me to shoot more so I had a shot.
“We’ve only trained twice together and everyone slots in, even the new players just slot in so well.
“The coaches tell us exactly what to do and we do that and it works well.
“We didn’t even know Bulls was going to be a thing a few years ago, so to score for them is very good.”
Manager Chad Morris was pleased that his side, who have only been brought together this season from the best players in the island’s domestic league, started the game so well:
“We said to him before the game that we knew it was going to be a huge occasion, the first women’s team to play in the UK pyramid, but they had a job to do which was to actually play a game of football at the end of all of that.
“I think there’s no doubt they did that, from the word go they were at it, pressing really hard and then got two, three goals really quickly which settled everybody down and then pushed on from there.
“We planned to press high from all their goal kicks so to see how they would try and play through us, which they didn’t.,” he added.
“We won a lot of ball high up, so basically kept them penned in their defensive third the majority of the game.