Birmingham City 1 Queen’s Park 3

Queen’s Park backed up their pre-season win against Stirling University, with a comfortable 3-1 victory against Birmingham City U21 at SportScotland Inverclyde Sports Centre in Largs on Tuesday night.

There were two familiar faces on The Spiders team-sheet with both Ellie Kane and Emma Craig making their second debuts for the club.

Keen to make a good start on her return to the club, Ellie Kane wasted no time in getting the scoring underway, opening the scoring after just eight minutes. Having won a throw-in on the left-hand side, Kane received the ball from Morgan Hay, brought the ball down with a brilliant first touch, and smashed the ball in off the crossbar from range.

Three minutes later, Kane was at it again. This time, she received the ball just outside the box, held off her marker, and curled the ball around the onrushing keeper and into the bottom corner.

Queen’s continued to pile pressure on the young Blues with shots from Abby Callaghan and Emma Craig forcing the keeper into some crucial saves.

In the 21st minute, Birmingham halved the Spiders lead. Birmingham broke quickly down the left-hand side to find their way into the box and a defensive error allowed the number 60 to round Natalie Angelini and slot home.

The Spider’s response took just three minutes. A through ball from Kane found Summer Thomson in the Blues’ box. Thomson made a brilliant cross-box run, beating two markers and slotting into the far bottom corner to restore the two-goal cushion.

Summer came close to doubling her goal tally for the game in the 29th minute when she let fly from the edge of the box, but her effort drifted just wide.

Half-time: Queen’s Park 3 Birmingham City U21 1

Birmingham came out with much more intent in the second 45 with a strong defensive line limiting Queen’s attacking opportunities. Their forwards caused a number of problems for Queen’s, but some excellent defending and some crucial goalkeeping from Angelini kept the second half at a stalemate.

In the 87th minute, the Spiders thought they had added a 4th as Callaghan finished from close range, but the offside flag went up.

Full-time: Queen’s Park 3 Birmingham City U21 1

The win keeps Queen’s Park’s unbeaten pre-season run going after they drew to Hamilton Academical in their opening fixture. Summer Thomson, who came in at the beginning of the season, has also kept her incredible goalscoring record going, having scored in all three appearances for the club.

Next up for Queen’s Park is a Glasgow derby against Glasgow Women FC on Sunday, 2nd of August at Springburn Park.