WOKING Women’s bid to reach their first cup final ended in disappointment last Sunday – but they feel they can hold their heads high.

The Cards were beaten 3-0 on penalties after holding Woodley Sports 1-1 in 90 minutes in their Southern Region Women’s League Chairman’s Cup last-four clash at Woking College.

Midfielder Trudy Bryan-Kerr, who captained Division One South’s Woking against their Division One North opponents, told the News & Mail: “I’m really proud of us. I thought we did really well. 

“They won their league, so we knew they were going to be tough. But we held our own. 

“We had a couple of chances we could’ve capitalised on. And if we’d got a lead to begin with, we’d have been able to hold on to that.” 

The game was a close affair that came to life once Woking were reduced to 10 players when keeper Roz Markham was shown a straight red card for handball outside the area with 15 minutes left. 

From the resulting free-kick, Woodley’s Gemma Sims fired past substitute goalie Maya Newsam.

But the Cards showed tenacity to haul themselves level with a superb free-kick from Sheena Nichol five minutes later. 

After that, there was nothing to separate the two sides in regular play. So the tie went to a shootout.

Bryan-Kerr said: “I forgot that we had 10 players. I don’t know what it looked like from the sidelines, but it didn’t show too much from on the pitch that we were a player down – so that’s a credit to us.

“At the start of the season, that goal [from Woodley] would’ve killed us off.

“But now we can pick ourselves up from these things and get ourselves back into a game.”

For full reaction to the cup defeat, see the 6 April issue of the News & Mail - in shops now.