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| VSU among the goals as new term starts |
Viking South Utsira wrapped up their Division 3e title-winning campaign with a 1-0 home win over Deportivo Cruz Azul, an occasion that was a faint let-down for the neutrals at least after the two sides had shared a 6-3 on the first day of term -- but any dissatisfaction among Blood Eagles fans will have been ameliorated by the first friendly of preseason just four days later, when they hosted LNWR Locomotive and won... 6-3.
Kristin Hovland scored four and set up another to kickstart her preparations for her 19th season in Utsiran colours in the best possible fashion, not least due to the natural hat-trick she scored in the last 18 minutes to finally wrench the game away from Locomotive in emphatic fashion after the Steamers had come back from 2-0 and 3-2 down to 3-3 entering the closing stages. The scoreline was rather harsh on the visitors, on their long-awaited first ever visit to Utsira nearly five years after the two clubs' only previous meeting in a friendly at Mollington Street at New Year 2017 that ended 6-0 to VSU. Here's hoping this result does not mean another such hiatus...
36-year-old Kristin had to take a back seat to another experienced star, Nina Austrheim, three days afterward when VelvetAndroid's side won 3-0 in another friendly at Gretna Girls FC. 33-year-old captain Nina scored twice to ensure a comfortable enough victory over the rebuilding Scots, whom the Utsirans met twice only last month in the league but who will be playing two tiers below them next term after the pair left 3e in opposite directions.
This led straight into the first competitive fixture of the new Season 64, with VSU getting their campaign off to an untaxing but fairly thrilling start by destroying brand new team Triombo 8-1 away in the first leg of their Round 1 Xpert Ladies Cup tie. Six different Blood Eagles found the net, 20-year-old forward Irja Klovning trebled her career tally with an early brace, Tyra Klovning netted two freekicks, and Elza Klovning scored one and set up three more, with the only blot on the day being the hosts' first ever goal coming through a penalty on the hour from midfielder and skipper Anastasia Filkina.
All of which brings us back to Xpert Ladies league action, just a fortnight after the previous season ended. Android's team kick off back in Division 2b for the first time since relegation 9 seasons ago, since when they have sunk as low as the fifth tier before starting the fightback. They will face a club they have never met before, fast-rising Sebago Town FC, whose Div 3c triumph last term was their fourth successive promotion.
Their total of 30 points does not compare with Viking's 34 in winning Div 3e, which was the best in the whole of Division 3 last season, but Sebago have reached a new all-time highest level in the league after winning their group by a greater margin -- 4 points, ahead of Juves Tjejer, the same club who, when a Division 1 side twenty-five seasons ago, a Division 6 Viking famously knocked out of the Cup in October 2014 to ignite their own original rise under Android less than a month into his reign.
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