Natasha: The best feeling ever!

Everton heroine Natasha Dowie could not hide her joy after scoring the late winner in the F.A.Women’s Cup Final against Arsenal.

The 21-year-old had also earlier found the net and was named as the Player of the Match with a performance that will have strongly pushed her claims for a place in the England squad.

“The ball broke through,” she recalled, “I saw Emma Byrne coming out of her goal and I thought I’d try and dink it over her and as soon as I knew it was going in, it was just the best feeling I’ve ever had.

“I just ran and jumped into the crowd – I didn’t even know if they were our fans or not! I knew it was going to be the last kick of the game so I knew it was going to be an important goal. It’s just the best feeling ever and I want it to last.

“It didn’t all go our way, Arsenal were on top for most of the second half and maybe extra time but we defended brilliantly, from front to back and we got the break and I’m just so happy that I could put the goal away and win us the game because we deserved it.

It was a mixed day of fortunes for the Dowie family as Natasha’s uncle Iain, who is the Temporary Football Management Consultant at Hull City, had seen the Tigers confirmed as relegated from the Barclays Premier League a couple of hours earlier.

“My uncle will have been watching on the TV and he’ll ring me up and be so proud of me,” she said. “He’s a top man, he works so hard and I am sure he’ll bounce back from his disappointment.”

Mo Marley was understandably delighted after landing the biggest domestic trophy of her management career so far. “In the past we’ve respected Arsenal too much,” she said, “but today was all about what we can do – and we got the result we wanted and deserved.

“We’ve had some disappointing results this season, all of them in high profile games, but today can hopefully be the start of a great future of Everton.”

Arsenal manager Laura Harvey was left to contemplate her first domestic defeat in charge of the club, but was also looking to the near future. “We were disappointed with our first half performance,” she admitted,” we tried to pin some things down at half time and I think in the second half and for the majority of extra time we were the better team. But you can’t have that many chances in a game and not put them away.

“We can only learn from it. I said to (the players) ‘let’s not have this feeling again because it is not nice’ but we have to learn from it quickly. The club isn’t used to this feeling. We have to make sure we reflect on the game and learn from the mistakes we made and the chances we didn’t put away and the next time the chance comes along we have to make sure we come out on top.”