A crowd of just over 500 witnessed a spirited display by Stuart Wilsons young Derby side against Women’s Super League giants Everton at the Don Amott Leisure Group Arena on Thursday night.

The game marked the latest in a number of high profile friendly fixtures over the past two seasons that have seen Ewe Rams entertain both Arsenal (twice) and Liverpool, as the club looks to continue to raise awareness of the female arm of the club, at the same time as testing themselves against the games elite as part of their ambitious plans to secure promotion to the Super League themselves.

A full strength Everton side featuring a number of players from within the England set up, were somewhat fortuitous in taking a 4-0 lead by the 40th minute with Chantelle Boye- Hlorkah netting a hatrick, however a clinical finish from leading scorer Mel Johnson sent Derby into the break with a platform to build on.

Ewe Rams did just that, and further goals through Johnson and Natalie Reay brought the score back to 3-4 on the hour mark, however Manager, Wilson had indicated prior to the game that he would be changing the entire side at that point, with this weekend’s fixture at Preston in mind, and having brought on a number of teenage Reserve team players, Everton were able to capatalise and score a further three goals.

Despite the final result, Wilson was pleased with what he saw. “ Everton manager, Andy Spence agreed with me that at the hour mark a one goal deficit was a fair reflection of how the game had panned out. Having gained the momentum we could have gone in search of an equaliser and even a winner and with the crowd in full voice it would have been easy to have done that. However we have a big game at Preston on Sunday and when combined with the opportunity for our young reserve team players to experience playing in front of a large crowd and against national level players making the changes that we did was the right thing to do “

According to Chief Executive, Duncan Gibb the game ticked all the boxes that the club had in mind when they arranged it. “ We’ve seen a lot of new supporters come along tonight to see what we are about and we have another club operating at the top end of the game championing us as a club. Andy Spence was glowing in his praise of Derby as a club after the game and told me that in terms of how we operate off the pitch we will be a welcome addition to the WSL, whilst he was also very impressed by a number of our players. The key for us now is to continue to improve the squad at the same time as developing and reaping the benefits of our fantastic youth set up “

This Sunday Ewe Rams are back in Premier League action when they travel to league leaders, Preston. According to Stuart Wilson, the fixture provides an immediate opportunity to put right what he felt was a harsh exit from this seasons FA Cup competition. “ Three weeks ago we made the same trip in the cup and having bossed much of the game saw ourselves exit the competition to an injury time breakaway goal. The players were down at the time, however having had time to reflect on the performance if not the result, along with the first sixty minutes against Everton, we’ll go there in good spirits confident of getting something from the game “