Five Months in the Making: Team spirit and tactics pay off as Magpies stun Swindon

Megan Harper scores Maidenhead’s winner. Photos: Darren Woolley.

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Manager Dave Kitson joked that it had been a victory five-and-a-half months in the making after his Maidenhead United Women side pulled off one of the results of the season which would have sent shockwaves around the FA Women’s National League Division 1 South West at the weekend.

United’s women faced Swindon Town at the weekend, with the Wiltshire side having won 11 out of 11 FAWNL matches this season and – with games in hand – needing just a point against Maidenhead to go back top of the division.

Instead, Richard Wood’s side – who beat United 4-1 on the opening day of the season in August – suffered their first league defeat since February 2025 as Kitson’s team put in a high-tempo, committed performance of no little quality and intelligence to open up the promotion race in the division and cement their own place in the top half of a hugely competitive division.

For the second weekend running, Maidenhead – whose players are neither paid nor under contract – faced a big-budget side without the benefit of ‘home’ advantage. Last week’s encounter with Bridgwater had to be played at Ascot United and this week it was the turn of Burnham FC to host with the York Road pitch waterlogged.

On this occasion the Magpies had 29-goal Swindon captain and league top-scorer Annie Colston to contend with, and they suffered a major blow after just nine minutes when defender Charley Evans had to limp off with a knee injury, to be replaced by Tarran Williams who had been on dual registration with Tier 6 side Andover New Street.

Williams slotted in alongside Molly McKeever and Myah Baksh in the centre of a five-player defence and her steadfast performance in coming in in an emergency was typical of close-knit United’s team ethic.

Despite having to defend for large chunks of the game, United had the better chances against the best-performing defence in the division.

A combination of Town defenders and ‘keeper Hannah Cox kept out the threatening Lyndsey Preston who had latched onto a fine delivery on the run from Megan Harper and Preston it was who fired an effort off target when latching onto a long ball from Sarah Sparrow with the visiting defence struggling to keep pace with the Californian winger.

Next to go close was top-scorer Izzy Stockton who screwed her effort narrowly wide after some neat one-touch passing in the build-up.

In response, Swindon saw the dangerous Gipsy Viveash go close twice, once denied by the legs of returning goalkeeper Kenny Clarke and Taylor MacDonald saw a free-kick – harshly awarded for handball against Myah Baksh – crash back off the face of the crossbar. Sky Bedwell put a shot wide at the far post just before the break.

Swindon showed their quality in dominating the early stages of the second half, but United stood firm as the match grew into an end-to-end affair.

Midway through the half Colston was put through down the left-hand side, she rounded Clarke but saw McKeever time her clearance off the line to perfection.

The game-breaking moment occurred minutes later as a Swindon corner was cleared by the committed United backline, the clearance ending up in the Swindon half occupied only by a solitary Town defender and Cox.

Under pressure from the spring-heeled Harper, the defender passed back to Cox who was flustered by the oncoming Magpies forward, dithered over her clearance and saw Harper walk in her fourth goal of her first season with United.

In response MacDonald saw another long-range free-kick bounce back off the crossbar. Swindon might have begun to think this would be their day, but they also had a let off when Stockton won possession back in the United final third and Preston rather rushed her off target effort with only Cox to beat. After six well-defended minutes of injury time, United were able to celebrate a special victory.

Speaking afterwards, Kitson told Neil Maskell: “We worked hard on that frustration to frustrate Swindon from the start. I think they expected us to set up completely differently.

“We had a plan for it, and we had a plan since the opening day of the season. We were unfortunate to get Swindon on the opening day, it was roasting hot, we didn’t have a full squad and we lost 4-1.

“And ever since then I’ve been working out how to beat them. We managed to do it today, and the manner of it.

“When you set up in a certain way, things have to go your way in key moments. You can work on the basics, but things have to go your way. When their goalkeeper tripped over the ball and Megan went through, the whole thing was like slow motion. She managed to get back up and stick it in the net.

“Those are the moments that you need to take advantage of, and we did.

“This squad was put together from scratch, from very late in pre-season. We’ve done a lot of work on the team culture, bonding us together. We had a team bonding session on Thursday, and we literally witnessed players forging relationships in front of us, by giving over a little bit of personal information that we didn’t know about.

“I was wondering if we’d see that, and we did, we saw that on the pitch today.”