Sun 28 Feb: Crystal Palace Blues 2-1 Teddington Athletic

This was Teddington Athletic’s worst ever defeat.

They’ve been beaten by bigger margins before, and in all likelihood will be again; no team can expect to remain unbeaten, especially when competing in the county’s top flight against offshoots of professional clubs from the Football League and Premier League.

But let’s not gild the lily. Before this game, Crystal Palace’s second team defined rock-bottom, having played 12 league games and lost them all, scoring just nine goals and conceding at least 78 (the “at least” allowing for the league’s laudable limiting of reported winning margins at eight goals). But they beat Teddington, and deservedly so.

Two days after being given their gleaming new kit for next month’s Florida tour, the visiting team turned in the sort of performance to raise the question: “Why bother?”. Manager Dave Waldron had dashed across London from Lord’s, where some of the girls were progressing in a cricket competition. Assistant manager Gary Parkinson was absorbing his daughter’s decision to leave the team at the end of the season to concentrate on her GCSEs, and was himself wrestling with whether to continue his commitment to the club. On Friday, the coaches had dedicated another excellent training session to retaining possession and tiring out the opposition. And the players’ ever-willing parents had once again donated the bulk of their Sunday to schlepping an hour each way through some of south London’s ugliest suburbs.

The only people who didn’t show up were the players.

The warning signs were there from early on. With only 12 players available, it didn’t help that more than half of them turned up late to a ground they’d only played at three weeks previously. Despite the 1.30pm kick-off, many were unaccountably dozy in a lacklustre warm-up – an apt name with some players complaining of the cold, as if they hadn’t been bought enough thermal base-layers in their lives.

Some players might blame their parents for not packing a base-layer, but that would excuse a lack of responsibility that would soon leave them feeling silly as well as chilly. These are no longer primary-school children, and although part of the point of Teddington Athletic is to equip the girls for life’s challenges, unlike in last week’s narrow win at Fleet Town none of them really rose to take control of the situation. A team that started the day third in the league looked leaderless, listless and eventually pointless.

Some dug in and tried – Amy was as diligent as ever, Liz came out for the second half determined to take the game by the scruff of the neck, and emergency centre-forward Doddsy tried to outrun the defence – but they weren’t good enough to match a winless team whose average result this season was a 6-1 loss.

Meanwhile in a simultaneous game on an adjacent pitch, champions AFC Wimbledon and runaway leaders Crystal Palace Reds contested a Cup game played at a far higher quality, yards away in geography but miles ahead in application and ability.

There were hard-luck stories along the way. A qualified referee might have disallowed Palace’s first goal, although it’s a moot question whether Ruby had dropped the ball fractionally before the striker – chasing lost causes in a manner Teddington rarely did – kneed home the opener. The home side’s typically high offside line (against which the management had designed a simple tactical plan the players failed to enact) was aided by an overenthusiastic home linesman who seemed to regard any attacker as active at all times.

But all credit to Palace, who were more than the sum of their parts. Their crucial second goal was a fine strike, the big No.6 outstripping the visitors’ defence and lashing home a ferocious shot which may have bounced down off the crossbar and over the line – not that she waited for acknowledgement before heading home the bouncing ball anyway.

All game long the strugglers fought for each other, even when Teddington threatened an undeserved late comeback with Carla hitting the post and Liz despatching a penalty nobody seemed to want to take. Had the visitors fluked a draw it would have been unconscionably cruel on their visibly thrilled hosts, who were enthused anew with a love of football. Unlike some in the league, Palace Blues and their manager Matt have a likeable humility and gratitude; they may not have a winning team, but they have a winning attitude. Teddington need to rediscover theirs.

TEDDINGTON ATHLETIC Ruby Rudkin, Anna Kauffman, Millie Theobald, Saskia Brewster, Amy Hallett, Carla Novakovic, Ella Dodd, Liz Kriebel (1p), Emily Coulson, Millie MacEacharn, Ella Bothamley. Sub: Emily Bashford.