Birmingham City 2-2 London City Lionesses
By Alyce Collett (4/5/25)
London City Lionesses are Barclay’s Women’s Championship champions after picking up a point from a 2-2 draw against Birmingham City. Coming into the match only needing to avoid a loss, London City initially had a comfortable lead, but had to fight off a solid Blues’ comeback to make sure they lifted the trophy.
London City’s goals came from Isobel Goodwin and Chantelle Boye-Hlorkah, while goals from Emily Van Egmond and Cho So-hyun brought Birmingham City back into the match, those goals were ultimately not enough.
The match was open and free flowing early, with much of the match being end to end action. Birmingham City had the first decent chance to score, but the sheer numbers of the London City defence neutralised it.
Eventually momentum started to swing the visitors’ way, as they started to rack up time in their attack and picked up a couple of corners in a row. City were not without their moments of potential though, at times really testing the foundations of the Lionesses’ defence.
As the half reached its halfway mark Ivana Fuso started to really get into the game for the home side and started to create things in midfield, while Lee Geum-Min was also starting to get into dangerous positions.
Meanwhile for the visitors Goodwin was getting herself into good positions, but her first touch was too heavy at times which was letting her down. Sofia Jakobsson was also creating dangerous moves out wide on the right.
As the first half progressed it was a very even contest, and it was the type of match where minor mistakes or millimetre imperfections could prove telling.
As half time drew closer London City started to wrestle back control and got incredibly close to putting a first goal on the board but could not quite find the back of the net. The scoreline ultimately sat goalless at the break after an intriguing first half, with the match still all to play for in the second half.
The half time stats really showed how even the first half had been.
London City had about 7% more of the possession, but crucially only one of their seven shots was on target. By comparison, Birmingham City got three of their six shots on target.
The Lionesses came out of the half time break on the front foot, and did not even take two minutes to put the opening goal on the board after Goodwin scored a rocket from outside the box.
They had a second just over 10 minutes after their first when Boye-Hlorkah headed home an Asllani corner to make the hill the Blues had to climb just that bit taller.
However just as everything looked settled, Birmingham City breathed some life back into the game after Van Egmond headed home a goal of her own.
The goal gave the home side a bit of a pep in their step and they started to press harder when in possession. They continued to build up continuous time in their attacking third, but just could not find a way past the London City defence.
As the minutes continued to tick down it was not looking good for the home side, but with about five minutes left in the match Cho belted a shot home to really make it anyone’s game. Just to add to the drama, with everything that had happened in the second half there ended up being 10 minutes of stoppage time.
London City went very defensive in that stoppage time, and it was clear that they were just trying to ride out the time as all they needed was a draw to take the title. Birmingham City kept attacking and spent just about the entire 10 minutes with the attacking momentum, but no matter what or how hard they tried they just could not get past the London City defence.
It was a messy and at times chaotic final moments of the match, but ultimately the Lionesses kept the Blues out, and the title was theirs.
Teams: BIRMINGHAM CITY (4-2-3-1): Franch, Lawley, Holloway, McKenna, Cooke, Harrison-Murray, Fuso, Magill, Van Egmond, Yuri, Lee. Substitutes: Szperkowska, Mason, Quinn, Quinn, Smith, Cho, Akpan, Baker, Locke.
Scorers: Van Egmond 64’, Cho 86’
LONDON CITY LIONESSES (4-2-3-1): Orman, Neville, Goldie, Kumagai, Asllani, Perez, Jakobsson, Roddar, Goodwin, Imuran, Boye-Hlorkah. Substitutes: Poor, Mukandi, Brougham, Campbell, Ivanovic, Meyong, Wilde, Brown, Godfrey.
Scorers: Goodwin 47’, Boye-Hlorkah 59’
Attendance: 8,749.
Referee: Stacey Fullicks
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