Ipswich Town Women’s captain Maria Boswell was really excited when the Blues were drawn away against Women’s Super League giants Manchester City in the fourth round of the Adobe Women’s FA Cup, but knows there’s a tough third-round tie against AFC Bournemouth on Sunday before she and her side can start seriously thinking about a trip to the North-West.

Boswell, 21, was following the draw with midfielder Kyra Robertson, with whom she shares a house, and says there were a couple of false dawns before the Blues and Bournemouth were paired with City.

“Me and Kyra were at home, so we were watching it together,” she said. “It’s always nervy, you’re waiting for your ball to come out.

“We were ball 24 and when Arsenal got pulled at home and Chelsea got pulled at home, and then the away game started with a 20, they were really dragging it out, they were going ‘Twenty….. nine!’.

“And then City got pulled at home and it was one of the balls nearer the end, so we were still waiting for our ball to come out.

“Really excited about the draw, it’s what the FA Cup’s all about, you want to challenge yourself against higher opposition and have those sort of experiences and opportunities, but obviously we’ve got the game at the weekend, which is the main focus.

“It’s all well and good dreaming about playing City away and playing opposition like that, that are world class, but we’ve got to get the job done on Sunday, which is the main priority that we’re all focusing on this week.

“So there hasn’t actually been too much chat about City, the players’ WhatsApp went off a little bit after it got pulled but that was about it, we haven’t really spoken about it much since.”

Town have history against City, who are currently second in the WSL, having faced them, also away, in the fifth round in February 2020 when the then-fourth tier Blues fell to a 10-0 defeat.

While manager Joe Sheehan had already been in charge for a year, only three players remain at the club from that squad, all-time top scorer and appearance-maker Natasha Thomas, winger Sophie Peskett and midfielder Eloise King.

“I didn’t play in it, I was still a young one in the academy coming through,” Boswell recalled. “I think people like Pesk were playing at that point, but we’ve changed so much over the last four years, we’ve evolved as a squad.

“There’s not many players that played back then that are still here and I think we’ve grown, obviously City have grown as well I’m sure, but I think we’re well up for it.

“I think it’s just an exciting opportunity to go away and play them. I would have liked them to come to Felixstowe and play on our pitch and see what that would have been like, but it would a great experience to go up to Manchester and play at their ground on a lovely pitch. Very exciting if that is the case.”

Before a tie with City - which would be played over the weekend of 11th and 12th January - can be added to the Town fixture list, the Blues first have to beat the Cherries at the Martello Ground, Felixstowe on Sunday (KO 1pm).

The Dorset side have enjoyed a remarkable start to the season in FAWNL Division One South West, a level below the Blues, having won all nine of their league fixtures and currently have a plus-47 goal difference.

Boswell knows Town can’t take victory as a matter of course: “Definitely not. I think we’ve prided ourselves, especially this year, on not underestimating any team. We take every team exactly the same, we prepare exactly the same in the week leading up to it.

“Bournemouth have had a really good start to their season, they’re unbeaten, so they’re going to be a really tough team, they’re going to be well up for it.

“We were that team a few years ago in the Man City FA Cup run when we played Huddersfield. We were tier four, they were tier three and sometimes it is a bit easier going into a game as the underdog - you’ve got nothing to lose, you’re really up for it, you want to cause an upset.

“So we’ve got to be aware of that being the team that’s in the higher division that’s expected to go into the game and win.

“We won’t take them lightly, we’ve had now two weeks to prepare for it and we’re all really up for it.”

Away from the cup, Town are now three points clear at the top of the FAWNL Southern Premier Division, still unbeaten in the league, with a game in hand on second-placed Hashtag United with the title winners promoted to the Women’s Championship.

For much of the season, the Blues have been in third behind the Tags and Oxford having had two games in hand on both, but Boswell didn’t feel any less pressure during that spell.

“Having played in this league for a good three years now, I’ve spoken about this with Kyra before, it never really feels that the pressure’s off,” She reflected.

“There is so much riding on every single game because we know that the tiniest little slip-up can really cost you in this league, there’s not much room for error.

“I don’t think sitting second and looking up at Hashtag or sitting top with a game in hand, the pressure really changes. We go into every game the same, with the same kind of expectation on really trying to come out with the three points and the importance of that.

“Obviously it’s nice where we are in the table at Christmas and we’re really, really pleased with how we’ve done so far, but there’s still so much of the season to go and still so much work to do.”

The Blues have got stronger as the campaign has gone over the last couple of seasons and Boswell believes the same should be the case this term.

“I think there’s still so much to come from our team,” she said. “We’ve played well, we’ve had some games where we’ve had to really knuckle down and see it through and we might not have played to the standard we expect of ourselves, but I think this team is so good at just getting a result whatever it takes.

“But then there have been some games where we’ve come off and we’ve been really, really happy with the performance.

“Bit up and down in terms of that, but there’s so much more to come from this team. It’s really exciting the levels we can hit and in the last couple of weeks in training especially, we’ve hit really, really high levels.

“We were really up for the game last Sunday, but it unfortunately got called off, but I think it’s given us another week of really good training at a really high level and we feel really prepared.”

Boswell was handed the captaincy a year ago this month, an anniversary which had crept up on her, but a role she clearly relishes, despite her relative youth.

“I forgot about that!” she smiled. “They sometimes run over me, they all gang up on me. I left some kit in the changing room completely by accident the other day, my mistake and they all ganged up in the group chat and were discussing what fine I should be given!

“I try and do the best I can at such a young age. There are some situations that I still don’t know how to navigate and I just try and do the best I can and speak to the people around me and lean on people like [general manager] Rachel [Harris] and other leaders in the group like Kyra, I obviously speak to her a lot having lived with her.

“In a lot of situations, it’s not all on me, we’ve got such a good group that I can go to and speak to. I’ve loved it, I’ve enjoyed it, it’s been a great year and hopefully more to come.”

One of those situations when the group came together was to offer support to midfielder Charlotte Fleming after the summer signing from Watford suffered an anterior cruciate ligament injury (ACL) in the second-round FA Cup win away against Hashtag last month.

“We’re such a tight-knit squad, when we all found out the news, I think everyone individually was gutted for her,” Boswell said.

“I think everyone had their own individual way of going about it. I know Pesk got her a little something before we got the news that it was her ACL.

“I think everyone had their own way of dealing with it but for me it was important that we did something for her as a group, so I said to the girls a couple of days after we found out, we want to get a card signed, put all our messages into one place for her to give her a little something to go back to if she needs a bit of motivation.

“Just put together a nice little thing to get her through the surgery and get her through the really tough first couple of weeks after the surgery.

“On the Sunday before Wimbledon [which Town won 5-0], I just asked Joe if he minded me saying a little something for her, so I just said what I needed to say, but Charlotte really took the reins and it was quite emotional for all of us to hear what she had to say.

“I think it gave is a bit of extra motivation going into the game. I think you could see that on the pitch.”

Photos: TWTD/Matchday Images

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