Olympic Spirit

The Cameroon Olympic team has chosen Aberdeen as its training base for the London 2012 games and the ladies football team was in action today, playing a warm up friendly against Northern Ireland at The Haughs in Turriff. Now I happened to see the Indomitable Lionesses crossing King St. while I was stopped at a red light which cycling home on Friday, so I decided to go and see the match today. It is the first time that Turriff Utd. (a Highland League club) has hosted an international fixture so it was a big honour for the team and the town.

The teams were welcomed in the town centre and the pipe band led a parade down the hill to the Haughs. Here we see an Olympic torch lead out the teams for presentation prior to kick off.

The game was enjoyable and the footballers skilled. Cameroon won the match 2-0, with their No. 7 scored a great individual goal at the end, shortly after she had been announced as "woman of the match".

Compared to a mens match, the game flowed much more freely with very few fouls, no bookings and no dissent shown to the referee at all. Think it lived up to the Olympic Spirit. One thing That amused me was hearing the Irish players shout the old traditional "Man On"

The Lionesses will be playing another warm up game against Scotland at the Aberdeen Sports Village on 15th July and if you get the chance, its well worth going to see them.