Team Profile: Teddy Hall Women’s Football

As the first half of the Oxford football season draws to a close there remain very few teams with unbeaten records intact, but Teddy Hall women look set to go into the winter break boasting a perfect start to the season. Having won every cuppers and league fixture this season, it’s fair to say that this team are really lighting up JCR women’s football.

Teddy Hall captain Rosie Baker puts down their 100% start in the league down to the singular focus on football that runs throughout the squad. ‘Our girls life is football and only football’ says Baker with steely determination, though she does concede that having only played one league game has also been of ‘slight benefit’ in maintaining this winning start.

Baker makes no secret that Cuppers is where the team’s real desires lie, ‘we’re very set on getting our picture in the college bar’. These promises of fame and glory, should the Teddy Hall women pick up some silverware, has obviously proved a great motivation; Cuppers opponents Osler and Christchurch/Oriel have both been dispatched with consummate ease.

USA coach Jürgen Klinsmann, an inspiration to the team

These victories combined with a 4-0 thrashing of New in the league have seen Teddy Hall rack up 20 goals without reply this season. Baker attributes such an impressive defensive record to the simple but effective tactic of ‘keeping the ball away from the general area of the goal’.

Defensive strength forms only part of the Teddy Hall philosophy and comparisons to the 2006 Germany side’s attacking verve have been made by those lucky enough to catch the team in action this term. Baker freely admits that ‘Klinsmann is a big inspiration’, and the former Tottenham Hotspur and Orange County Blue Star forward will no doubt be delighted to be cited as an influence by such a  successful side.

If Teddy Hall are the Germany of JCR Women’s football then Sophie Mathew-Jones certainly plays the Bastian Schweinsteiger role. Described as the ‘central pivot of every play we make’ by her captain, Mathew-Jones is a recent convert to football having previously played hockey but has take to the beautiful game like a duck to water.

Second from right: Germany’s answer to Sophie Mathew-Jones

With players like Mathew-Jones Teddy Hall Women prove a formidable prospect for any side to face and some have even raised suggestions that they could teach the struggling Teddy Hall Men’s 3rds a thing or two about football. Baker refused to be drawn on the subject, diplomatically declining to predict the result of such a match up claiming her answer ‘might hurt some feelings’.

What is clear is that the Teddy Hall Women’s talent, drive and determination to succeed have been key to a great start to the season, which shows no sign of coming to an end once the winter break is over and football resumes in Hilary.