In the end, it was West Ham who progressed in the Vitality Women’s FA Cup, but Wolves Women held their full-time opponents for 70 minutes before the deadlock was finally broken. The tie marked a first ever fixture against WSL opposition for the old gold and a crowd of almost 1,700 supporters, a record since moving to the New Bucks Head, were there to witness the historic occasion. McNamara has praised those who came in numbers to roar the team on and saw a performance full of guts and pride.
On being proud of the team
“I feel nothing but pride. I talk to the girls all the time about making memories and that’s definitely another one we can add to the memory box.
“I thought they were remarkable. At 70 minutes when we conceded I think their heads dropped and they started to be disappointed. I was trying to get the message onto them to understand what they were doing and I just had a chat with Paul Konchesky, their manager, who told me that the girls forced him to bring the big guns on.
“I’m delighted with how they performed, we executed the gameplan remarkably well. They gave me everything I asked of them - heart, desire and pride.”
A fearless performance. 👊 pic.twitter.com/3cC6ybE1Iv
— Wolves Women FC (@WolvesWomen) January 29, 2023
On the performance against a WSL side
“We’re not under any illusions, we knew there were big names on the bench, but the starting 11 we came against were still full-time with some household names in there with Hawa Cissoko being one of them at centre-back.
“I think we frustrated them, we executed the gameplan perfectly. At half-time you could see that the girls were growing into the game. We talk about breaking the game down into 10-minute chunks and as 10 minutes went by it was, can we get to 20 minutes? Then we got to 38 minutes and then it was about getting into half-time.
“They grew into the game and started to cause some problems. Of course we wanted to compete, but it wasn’t just about sitting in front of our goal, we wanted to threaten the other way as well, and I think we did that.
“Honestly, it’s just an enormous amount of pride for the girls, I think we can take this into the season now. They were tremendous.”
On the record-breaking crowd
“I always say this city unites in football and it has done again today. Those 11 on the pitch and nine substitutes running around in old gold giving everything. They’ve given every last ounce of energy today, they love the club, they represent the club the right way, the same way the men do week in and week out.
“I hope the 1,700 have enjoyed it today, I hope they’ll come back. I thank them for their support and I think they helped the girls through some tough moments there. They got behind us, it was loud, it was quite intimidating probably for West Ham at times.
