Stand-in goalie’s stand-out performance
IHAVE a new sporting hero this week, but unless you were in Newton Abbot on Friday evening or are an avid follower of local sport on social media, you may not have heard the name before.
But Sasha Mole had a night she will remember for the rest of her life, and to be fair so did nearly 600 people watching her and her teammates in action at Coach Road.
It was the final of football’s Devon Women’s Premier Cup, and the prospect of Torquay United Women taking on Exeter City Women had drawn a decent crowd.
Exeter play a league higher than Torquay, and their fans had got there early to tie their flags to the fences and hoardings around the ground. They were noisy and very confident, and, as the teams walked out on to the pitch together, a man banged a drum and sang a song about Exeter having “taken the county”.
Torquay fans were in the minority, but they had a drum, too, and weren’t about to cede their part of the county to any interlopers in red and white stripes.
Coach Road is the headquarters of the Devon FA, and it’s a kind of football mothership, with offices, changing rooms, a bar and a very handsome all-weather pitch enclosed by fences and barriers. At this time of year it hosts all kinds of cup finals, and does so very well indeed.
Most of the experts expected Torquay to put up some dogged resistance in the opening phases of the game, only to be overwhelmed by their superior opponents by the time the floodlights came on.
Luckily for us, things did not go according to the script, and it was Sasha Mole who wrote her own entry into the Great Football Moments ledger.
Torquay manager Steve Elswood, who has only recently taken the reins, found himself without his regular goalkeeper in the build-up to the cup final, and handed the gloves to outfield player Sasha just a few days before the showdown at Coach Road.
Those of us who like to think we know our football gave sharp intakes of breath every time Exeter attacked, awaiting the inevitable.
But Sasha and her team-mates held firm, and as the game went on they just got better. There had been no goals by the time it got really dark and the floodlights struggled to illuminate the far corners.
Then Exeter scored, of course, having spent 85 minutes running up against Torquay’s dogged never-saydie defence and hitting the woodwork once or twice. Game over, thought almost all of the spectators, and Exeter’s players started tapping the ball around among themselves to keep possession and run the clock down. But Torquay refused to heed the “experts” and never gave up.
They won a penalty in the seventh minute of injury time. There was some confusion, as Sasha is the team’s regular penalty taker and wanted to have a go, but the management decided that having her at completely the wrong end of the pitch in case of a save and quick clearance was a bad idea, so Leah Brooks rattled in the kick instead to equalise.
The rest of the evening was all about my new sporting hero. Sasha took and scored the very first kick in the penalty shoot-out, then took her place between the sticks again, where she proceeded to save two of Exeter’s kicks, thereby securing Torquay’s extraordinary victory. Astonished and elated Torquay supporters looked on as the Exeter fans untied their flags and headed home.
The Yellows picked up the cup, there was a great deal of joyful shouting and cheering, and my hero Sasha Mole was voted Player of the Match. All in all, it had been a very good night indeed.
Sasha Mole scored the very first penalty, then between the sticks she proceeded to save two